


Love is Noise

by Everlind



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlind/pseuds/Everlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First loves are notoriously difficult. For Shishido Ryou, it is the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Love is Noise**

Okay. This is stupid.

Scratch that; it's not. It's _lame_.

Nothing much is happening. At least well, there is actually, but sorta not and- Oh fucking hell _alright_. Alright. Deep breath. Get a grip.

Right then Choutarou leans into him and he feels himself jump physically when their shoulders brush. This has never happened before. He doesn't _get_ it. Why now? Of all the time they've spend together, why the hell now? You'd think it'd happen after a tennis match or during it, or when Choutarou is undressing in the clubhouse, or when he throws his head back and lets out that amazing laugh. _No_. Of course nothing as completely logical as that.

Instead it creeps up on him as he's watching Choutarou play the piano.

The day had started innocently enough. After tennis practice - the fourth one of his second year as it so happens - the two of them hung out together as per their norm. When dinnertime rolled around Choutarou invited him to stay, which he readily accepted. Then he'd helped Choutarou out with an essay, while he worked on his own homework. They'd gotten distracted and started talking about mundane things but somehow ended on music, and when Choutarou gets started on music… yeah. And that's how he's ended up sitting besides his doubles partner behind the magnificent grand piano the Ohtoris somehow have room for in their home.

There's this thing Choutarou does when he really gets into something. He does it in tennis, too, and even when faced with something as innocent as a race on the ice-skating rink against Hiyoshi. There's something about him that grows quiet, still, as though all of his resolve is crystallizing into the need to excel, but beneath that calm surface is something fierce and confident. His shoulders will square, his back straighten, his eyes focus and then he'll hit a 200 km/h serve or play like a demon on any instrument (or beat him at Tekken, but that's another story).

Music is something he's perfectly pants at, but even he can recognize Choutarou's playing for what it is: incredible. 

Shishido can only sit there, awe-stuck, as Choutarou's fingers fly over the keys, too clever and agile to be real.

The music ripples, going from raindrops tickling upon a windowpane to a storm enveloping a whole city as it builds, flashes like lightening, and then scatters into a sweet cadence as though the sun just came through. Choutarou's fingers stop, still leaning on the keys, his back bowed and head tipped down, as though he is hoping to pour his whole being into the instrument. The hair scattered over his forehead is wild. His eyes are narrowed and his teeth are bared.

And then it's over.

Choutarou takes a deep breath, hands sliding away from the ivories and sits up, blinking.

"Wow," Shishido offers, his voice sounding rough and inappropriate after the symphony of music just now. "That was-"

"I screwed up!" Choutarou interrupts, making a wry face. "I always mess up that one part. I go too fast and then I trip over my own fingers."

"Okay," Shishido says. "Shut up. It was amazing. How do you move your hands like that? It's freaky."

Choutarou smiles a bit. "Like this?" he asks and proceeds with an impossible maneuver that must involve dislocating his fingers or _something_ , because how the hell can his ring finger be there while his index finger is cocked that awkwardly and all the way over _there_?

"Yeah that," Shishido says, a little creeped out. "Just how the hell do you-" he tries to copy it and doesn't even get his ring finger on the other ivory, not without doing an awkward stretch with his hand that has him pressing down on all the intervening keys.

The piano groans in protest against Shishido's abuse.

"Wait-"

Shishido freezes as Choutarou's hand slips over his and raises it, urging him to claw his fingers. "Uhm-"

"Only your fingertips," Choutarou says simply, completely oblivious to Shishido's predicament.

He still doesn't reach, his ring finger now touching the neighboring key. "I can't. My fingers aren't long enough."

"That's not-" Choutarou tilts his head as he looks at Shishido's useless effort at copying him. "Let me see."

He holds up his hand, as though waiting for Shishido to high-five him. "What?" Shishido asks suspiciously. When his partner just waits, he tentatively mirrors the gesture.

Choutarou presses their hands together, palms matching. The tips of his fingers stick up way over Shishido's. "Huh," he smiles. "You really do have small hands."

"Oi," Shishido protests feebly, knowing he's blushing like grade schooler and unable to prevent it. "I've got _normal_ hands. _Your_ fingers are just really long."

"I guess they are," Ohtori says and proceeds with folding just the tips almost completely over Shishido's, holding his hand but not really.

"And ridiculously nimble," Shishido adds, his face burning.

  


_Shit_ , he thinks.

***

That night he lies thinking about Choutarou's ridiculously long fingers and doesn't know what to do.

His face still burns but now his chest hurts as well, and it is as though his skin is itching enough to crawl off. But most of all there's this roaring sensation between his ears, like a whole stadium full of people cheering at the nationals, not really the same, but just as… noisy.

He's not dumb. He knows what is happening.

Shishido is the first to jump up and proudly declare that he hasn't got a romantic bone in his body (and who would want to? … besides Oshitari that is) but even he kinda suspected that falling in love would have been a bit more, well, mind-blowing.

Instead, there was just the both of them behind the piano. And Choutarou's big hands.

And it is not even like a crack of lightning, or fireworks raining down, or something equally fast and impressive. No, he just feels confused and weirded out, faintly sick even, but there's one thing that finally makes sense.

It didn't just happened today. No, it's been happening for quite a while now.

Shishido thinks about his third year in middle school and how he was half of one of the best doubles pairs on the circuit. He thinks about his freshman year in high school when he felt like a blundering idiot, out of his element and constantly wondering what it was that was _gone_. He thinks about _now_ and about how the two of them wiped the court with the D1 pair in the beginning of the year, usurping their place.

Shishido thinks about how Choutarou's fingers danced on the ivories and squeezes his eyes shut against the feeling coiling deep in the pit of his stomach.

  


You'd think that falling in love with another boy would require a lot more than intriguing hands.

  


_Shit_ , Shishido thinks, covering his face with both hands.

 _Shit_.

***

"Oooooo-"

Shishido crosses his arms over the handlebar and waits it out.

"-oooooohaaaaaaaayooooo!" Jiroh says, happily.

Too happily.

He grunts in response and holds his bike steady as Jiroh clambers up behind. The coach in high school doesn't care if Jiroh is a prodigy; if he wants to play he needs to _be_ there. Even in the mornings. But everybody knows that there's this thing about Jiroh and waking up in the morning (or waking up in general) so he and Atobe take turns picking him up.

"You're late," he accuses as soon as Jiroh has stopped wriggling.

"You're grumpy," Jiroh counters.

Shishido ignores it. "Is it because I'm not driving a limo the way Atobe does?" he demands, standing up on the pedals to propel the bike forward under the burden of their combined weight.

"No. But at least Atobe is _nice_ to me," Jiroh points put.

"Yeah, I bet he just is," Shishido grumbles under his breath, rolling his eyes.

"What was that?" Jiroh demands.

Shishido doesn't answer, focusing on manoeuvring the both of them through the small maze of backstreets instead. The wind ruffles through his hair and stings at his eyes, but it almost feels as though he were running very fast, or if he's being really imaginative, flying. It's relaxing, this physical task, and Shishido's white-knuckled grip eases.

"What's wrong?" Jiroh asks.

His hands re-clench and the bars give a worrying creak. "Nothing. I'm fine."

After parking his bike in the lot, the two of them head over to the courts. There's a crowd already. The whole team shares a clubhouse (Just for now - Shishido knows for a fact that Atobe is trying to change this) and they walk in only to see the members engaged in acts of tomfoolery. Half-naked teenagers traipse about snapping towels at each other and gossiping about whose girl had the best tits.

Back in a corner they find Oshitari, Gakuto and Atobe talking quietly amongst the revelry.

"Morning," Oshitari says whilst shaking out his tennis uniform. "What's up?"

"I'm _fine_ ," Shishido snarls.

Oshitari stops and arches a brow, clearly having expected any other response but that one. "Of course you are," he says soothingly.

Atobe and Gakuto exchange _looks_. 

"We're here for you, Ryou," Jiroh says, putting a calming hand on his shoulder.

"I'm fine, really-" he splutters, but then Jiroh keeps looking up at him so sincerely with those big eyes of his. Fucking hell. "Oh, hell. It's just-" Shishido throws his hands in the air and spits out, "Choutarou's good at playing the piano."

There's a beat of silence. Atobe and Gakuto exchange another look.

"An obvious statement is still obvious," Oshitari says. "Also: _what_?"

"Oh, never mind," Shishido scoffs and turns his back to them to change.

Finished dressing, he grabs his tennis racket and tries to push through two third years giving each other wedgies. As a result, he gets sandwiched between them. And if that wasn't bad enough he can hear Gakuto mumble, "What crawled up his ass and died?"

"His feelings," Jiroh answers sagely.

"His feelings crawled up his ass and died?" Gakuto repeats. "That's just nasty… and potentially painful."

"Shut up," Atobe sniffs. "You're so crass."

"Am not," Gakuto tosses back.

Meanwhile Jiroh is saying, "He needs to talk about it."

"His ass?"

"His _feelings_ ," Jiroh says again with emphasis. "And you so too are crass."

"I can hear you!" Shishido shouts back at them.

"Ssh," Jiroh hisses. "See? Now you hurt his feelings."

"The ones in his ass?" Gakuto asks with a wicked little grin.

The others groan as they see Shishido's face turning a vivid shade of red from where they are standing.

"I HAVE NO FEELINGS!" Shishido roars, shoves the two third years off him, and makes a quick getaway.

***

"Shishido-"

"I don't wanna talk about my feelings!" he yells to whoever is behind him.

"Uhm," Choutarou says. "That's alright, you don't need to."

At the sound of his voice, Shishido whirls around and pastes a smile on his face. "Ah, err, Choutarou. Hi.” A short pause. “What?" Shishido asks upon seeing the look on the other's face.

"Are you alright?"

"I AM FINE," Shishido snaps. "What did you want?"

Choutarou gives him a vaguely hurt look. "I wanted to ask whether you wanted to play a match with me, since I don't have to pick up balls today, but if you are busy-"

"NO! I'm not. Busy, that is," Shishido backpedals feverishly. "Let's just play. Tennis. Not music." Choutarou gives him a strange look at the last and he groans inwardly.

They walk towards a free court, Shishido mentally beating himself over the head all the way. It's not supposed to be like _this_. He only figured it out yesterday; nothing's changed. Nothing.

"Shishido-san?" Choutarou asks very, very carefully, just when he's about to walk off to his side of the court.

"Yeah?"

"You sure you're okay? You seem a little… off. Maybe you're sick-" and then Choutarou's stepping closer, towering over him and putting a warm, grip-tape smelling hand over his forehead. A perfectly innocent way of checking for a fever.

But his hand.

His.

 _Hand_.

Shishido can instantly feel goosebumps rise, as though the small light hairs are reaching out for Choutarou, the same way his body seems to strain towards that touch. His _whole_ body. Shishido panics, backs away frantically, trips over his own racket, proceeds to fall backwards and smack his head against the net-pole.

His world instantly bursts into a swirl of color as a hot, searing warmth erupts on the crown of his head. His stomach heaves, his vision swims.

"I'm alright!" he manages to choke out as his teammates, Choutarou included, rush towards him. "I tripped. I'm fine."

Nice. Real smooth.

Things just can't get worse than this.

***

They can, of course.

Shishido goes to bed with a pounding headache from his battle with the pole. There's a lump the size of Mt. Fuji on the back of his head, but he doesn't tell his mother about the incident. Not that a simple 'I tripped over my own racket' wouldn't suffice because she'd believe that, but he rather feared her internal radar would notice that he's hiding something. And if not that, she'd try to slip him a painkiller or even force him to go to the doctor.

The throbbing in his skull is a welcome distraction, actually. It takes all his energy to ignore it, leaving none to be drawn into the chaos that is his emotional and mental state. Or so he hopes.

His head pounds. Shishido curls on his side, hands clutching at his skull and closes his eyes.

The next time he opens them, there's green all around.

 _Grass courts?_ Shishido thinks and digs the tip of his trainer into the ground.

_Wimbledon?_

He looks around. There's no seats, no stadium, no nothing. Just grass, stretching on and on and on for as far as the eye can see. The sky above is blue, too blue, and there's no clouds. Besides his trainers, there's nothing familiar about his tennis uniform. Only it is not his tennis uniform, but his high school uniform. White shirt, red tie, brown and beige checkered slacks. He's holding a tennis racket, not in his right hand, but his left, and it's not one with a green frame but a familiar yellow one.

"You've got my racket," Choutarou says from behind him.

Shishido wants to acknowledge him but for some unknown reason he's not able to turn around and face him no matter how hard he tries.

"I can't play without it," Choutarou says.

"Sorry," Shishido says, but it sounds weird, like a dog whimpering when being reprimanded.

"Don't you want to play?" Choutarou asks.

Shishido knows that he has to answer yes, yes he wants to play, of course he wants to, but his mouth won't move and his body is not reacting. 

"Why won't you give it to me?"

Suddenly, the world spins and Choutarou is facing him. There's a net between them, one that divides not just the whole world but the two of them as well. Shishido looks down at the yellow racket. It has brown strings. No, not strings. Not plastic. Hair. Long, dark hair. He holds out the racket, stretching it over the net, handle first.

"Not that," Choutarou shakes his head and takes a step closer. The handle of the racket slides through his chest, the left side, where his heart is. Shishido tries to tell Choutarou stop, that he's gonna hurt himself, but Choutarou is already on his side of the net, saying, "Your hand. Give me your hand."

Something tickles along the fingers of his right hand.

"No," Shishido says, panicking. Choutarou will _know_.

"Yes," Choutarou insists and winds their fingers together. "Ryou?"

"Yes?"

But Choutarou doesn't answer. Instead he cups a hand along the curve of Shishido's face. A thumb tilts his head back, his eyes close, and he can feel Choutarou's breath. Their lips touch, then cling when Choutarou pulls back. He can feel fingers dust his cheek and slip down to trace his mouth.

The touch moves dangerously south and he comes-

\- flying straight up in bed, his heart pounding deafeningly, his breathing choked.

Shishido leans back against the headboard, legs tangled in the sheets, body bathed in sweat.

His mouth hums, feels warm and strange, as though the caress of lips and fingers have made them sensitive. Shishido lifts his hand, touches his mouth. After a moment's hesitation, he mimics the ghost of fingers brushing along his lips.

There's nothing but the rush of desire hitting him low in the stomach.

  


That was close, too close.

***

"Are you alright?" Jiroh asks during lunch.

"I'm fine," Shishido says.

"Do you-"

"No, I don't want to talk about it," Shishido snarls.

"Our little sunshine," Oshitari says, smirking around the straw of his juice.

"Drop dead."

"And always so charming," Oshitari adds.

"Seriously, you need to shut up," Shishido tells him.

Oshitari does, not because Shishido says so, but because Gakuto arrives and plunks into the seat next to him. He steals Oshitari's juice, sips from the same straw Oshitari just had in his mouth. Gross.

He's about to comment on that when Hiyoshi arrives, Kabaji in tow.

He looks at Shishido, "Where's Ohtori?" he asks.

"How should I know?" Shishido snaps, stabbing his chopsticks viciously through a shrimp in his bento.

Hiyoshi just looks at him. As does Kabaji. Matter of fact, Oshitari and Gakuto do too. Even Jiroh, who's put his head down for a nap, cracks open an eye. Everybody stares.

Cheeks glowing, he stuffs his mouth with the shrimp, adds some rice and lets out a muffled, "He's in the music room."

Hiyoshi gives him a look that clearly says, 'there, was that so hard?,' and takes a seat next to Jiroh.

"Memorize his schedule much?" Gakuto mutters under his breath.

Shishido kicks him under the table.

Predictably, with only ten minutes left of lunch, Choutarou comes racing into the canteen. His tie is half undone, his hair mussed. He's got his rucksack over one shoulder, a tennis bag over the other, a violin case under one arm and a stack of music sheets. The sheets have clearly marked his steps, like breadcrumbs, from the door to the table.

"Sorry I'm late," he gasps out as he dumps everything on the table, scattering papers in every direction.

"S'okay," Shishido answers, both amused and vaguely concerned.

Choutarou doesn't have the usual 'it was an amazing session and I just couldn't leave' feel about him. It's more of a 'I'm starving and they wouldn't let me go' kind of look. On any other person it would translate into a bad mood, but not with Choutarou. He still has a smile for Shishido as he settles down opposite of him, pushing his bags aside to make room for his food.

Most of the team has already left but he and Hiyoshi are still finishing their lunches. Both of them slide their leftovers towards Choutarou as he never seems to feel full. Choutarou smiles and politely declines at first, but Shishido and Hiyoshi just leave their bentos, still half-full with delicious home-made food, right where they are until Choutarou eats them anyway. Over time Shishido and Hiyoshi discovered a strange sort alignment between some of their interests and priorities, one of which is Choutarou. Both of them have his well-being as their foremost priority, which works out splendidly until Shishido fucks up and gets to deal with not only a wounded Choutarou but a snippy Hiyoshi to boot.

It works the other way around as well, but, well… Hiyoshi doesn't fuck up as much. Never actually.

"Tough piece?" Shishido asks, focussing on the lacquered sheen of Hiyoshi's bento box instead of Choutarou's long fingers flitting over the table as he tries to make sense of his notes.

There's an uncharacteristic pause.

Choutarou finishes stacking his papers, his dark eyes distant. Shishido and Hiyoshi exchange a look.

"Something like that," Choutarou says with painfully false cheer into the silence. "Just need to figure out how to- well."

He smiles.

Shishido frowns. "Choutarou-"

The bell rings.

Hissing a curse at the untimely interruption, Shishido leans on the table and says, "Wait for me after class, alright?"

"I will!" Choutarou answers, still bright and cheerful as he hastens to gather his notes.

Shishido watches him rush out of the canteen, Hiyoshi by his side, worry coiling in the pit of his stomach.

***

This falling in love thing? Yeah, it's kinda the worst thing to ever happen to him.

And the second worst? Being in the same class as Oshitari Yuushi.

How exactly he's managed to land himself with high enough scores to get sorted into the same lot as the tensai of the team has yet to be ascertained. Fact is, he did get high enough scores, better even than Atobe's (HA! Though Atobe was probably too busy getting his v-card - and Jiroh's – punched during exams.. so the epic win was sorta overshadowed), and now he gets to deal with Oshitari. Every damn day.

Who is, not only nosy, but incorrigible as well.

And has a habit of folding his notes into complex shapes, somehow knowing exactly how to use the best aerodynamic constructions to make his notes travel _all_ the way across class and onto Shishido's desk.

Ten minutes after class has begun, a waterlily lands on the open pages of his book.

Shishido sighs.

It takes him more than five minutes to figure out how to unfold the damn thing without ripping it to shreds only to growl at the words (but only after he takes a moment to admire the elegant brushstrokes).

_Girl trouble?_

Shishido feels the blood rush to his face so fast it makes him lightheaded. He crumples the note and waits for the teacher to turn her back before throwing the note back to Oshitari, hitting him square on the nose.

Thing is, Oshitari is rather immune to Shishido's 'back off or die' attitude. The note comes back.

_I could help, you know ;) I know how to charm the heart of a woman._

Shishido is half tempted to keep the note until the end of class and then shove it down Oshitari's throat. Instead he writes back:

_Gakuto doesn't count as a woman._

_P.S.: Go away._

He doesn't add that the last time he saw Oshitari charming something of Gakuto's it was _not_ his heart.

For the remainder of the hour Oshitari is blissfully silent and Shishido stares out of the window towards the courts. The bell finally rings and he shoves everything into his rucksack, eventually resorting to shoving it into a wad to make it all fit. Looking up, he finds Oshitari waiting for him by the door.

Shishido doesn't like the look on his face. It is far too smug.

"So," he says.

"No," Shishido answers, picking up pace, hating Oshitari's long legs.

"Ask her out on a date," Oshitari says.

"No," Shishido repeats more firmly and contemplates whether jumping through the window from the third floor is worth breaking his legs if it means escaping Oshitari.

"Of course, not like a _date_ date," Oshitari says genially, completely unaware -or uncaring- of Shishido's inner torment. "Not out for dinner or to the aquarium. Subtle. Ask if she'd like to go see a movie with you. Pick something not too romantic, perhaps a comedy. Something friends might go to see together."

"No!" Shishido snarls, darts through a gaggle of girls and then hops onto the banister of the stairs to slide down.

Somehow, impossibly, Oshitari is waiting for him at the bottom. Shishido lets out a frustrated _arrgh_ as he jumps off the banister and then turns around to take the long way towards the exit, hopeful that he might loose him in the swell of students that stream out of their classes.

"Of course you have to buy the food. Popcorn. Big bucket. Oh! And you could pick a scary movie! Maybe she'd need a strong, masculine shoulder to lean on after, ne?"

" _NO!_ " Shishido yells at him and storms off.

Oshitari cheerfully walks by his side, his long stride catching up to Shishido's faster pace instantly. "And if she's really keen for it, you might want to try the yawn-and-put-an-arm-around-her-shoulders technique. It's a bit tricky though, so only use it when you're sure. They tend to twirl their hair and bat their eyelashes if they're welcoming, so keep an eye out for that."

"Did Gakuto really fall for this crap?" Shishido asks at long last, morbidly curious despite himself.

Oshitari smiles some more.

Shishido decides not to ask.

Outside, Choutarou is waiting for him under their usual sakura tree.

"Hello Oshitari-san," he says, making a wry face when he sees their contrasting expressions.

Oshitari overflows with glee. Shishido scowls.

"Thanks for waiting," Shishido mutters, trying to give Oshitari a hint by turning his back to him.

"It's no problem," Choutarou responds. "Senpai, I wanted to ask you something."

"Shoot," Shishido counters and steps none too accidentally on Oshitari's toes.

Something weird happens. Choutarou goes from looking at his face to looking towards the fountain, dark eyes drifting away awkwardly. "I was wondering, well, if you are free tonight and, and don't have too much homework. Or other plans. Well-"

"What, Choutarou? Spit it out."

"Do you want to go and see this horror movie that's playing now? It's- _what_? What's wrong?" Choutarou's eyes are wide and staring straight at him.

"Nothing!" Shishido chokes out, hating Oshitari and his romantic truckload full of crap. "Nothing at all. I, yes, sure, no prob."

There's an awful silence behind him. Then Oshitari goes, "Oh! _Ooooh!_ "

"Yuushi. No," Shishido hisses. "Be right back, Choutarou," he adds, grabs and yanks at Oshitari's arm to bodily remove him from the scene.

" _So_ ," Oshitari says when they're out of earshot, happily letting himself be towed along.

"No," Shishido says, capital N.

"Yes?"

"NO! End of conversation. BYE Yuushi."

"Wait!" Oshitari plants his feet and no matter how hard Shishido pulls or pushes, he stays right where he is. He paws through his bag. There's a rip of paper, a clatter of pens. Paper crinkles.

Oshitari pushes a crane into his hands. "There. Now I've got to a bus to catch."

And just like that, he's off.

Shishido watches him go, bemused, and then blinks at the crane in his hands. He unfolds it.

_Boy Trouble?_

_I could help ;) I know how to charm the-_

Shishido stops reading, rips the note to a bazillion shreds and spends at least five minutes stomping them into the ground.

***

They take the train and the station's flooded with people; housewives carrying shopping bags and students in both uniforms and exercise clothes dragging bulging bags filled with books and sports equipment. Standing on the train is a chore but getting off it is even worse. There's jostling from all sides and eventually Shishido gives up, stepping in behind Choutarou to follow in his wake. People tend to let him pass as he stands more than a head above the crowd and has that broad shoulders-thing going on.

Choutarou suddenly stops on the platform causing Shishido to nearly walk right into his back. He peers around, left and right, eyes flying over the people in the press of bodies.

Shishido taps him on the shoulder, "Behind you."

Whipping his head around, Choutarou blinks into space for second, before looking down and smiling, relieved. "Oh, I thought I'd lost you," he says. "Uhm, do you want to grab something for dinner?"

His stomach grumbles. "Sure, but lets take the bus to the theatre first. That noodle bar will be packed now and s'gonna take ages to get food."

"Alright," Choutarou veers off, heading for the stairs out.

Luckily a bus pulls into the lot just as they arrive and they get on. For five minutes the bus remains stationary, engine purring, and people keep pushing in until they're all crammed together like sardines in a can. Shishido stands close to the rear doors, tucked into a corner. Choutarou starts out standing in front of him, but by the time the bus leaves, he has to step in much closer and brace a hand next to Shishido's head.

The bus lurches into motion and Choutarou rocks into him, giving Shishido a faceful of chest. He's warm.

"Sorry," Choutarou says quietly, trying to make more room. There isn't any. "I hope not everybody on the bus is going to the theatre."

"Yeah," Shishido manages through the suddenly stifled atmosphere, "me neither."

There's something about the way Choutarou is braced over him that makes all the blood in Shishido's body rush southward. To keep himself occupied he digs out his wallet, checks his money. Not much left. He usually gets his allowance on Sunday, so he always runs low on cash by the end of the week. He hopes he's got enough to pay for both dinner and the theatre. There's still some spare yen somewhere in his rucksack, he knows.

Two girls in garishly bright sailor uniforms nearby giggle, ducking their heads together. One of them looks rather pointedly in their direction, whispers something to her friend, and the both of them giggle behind their hands some more.

Shishido swallows.

It can't be this obvious.

Cheeks burning, he looks away from the girls and out through the window. Choutarou's hand is planted barely a breath's away from where he leans against the glass, the muscles in his forearms shifting as he keeps himself steady. His skin is fair, barely marked. Shishido touches his own knuckles and feels scabs, scratches, shiny trails of healed skin.

Their stop comes up and people swarm towards the door, pushing Choutarou flush against him, the worn cotton of his uniform shirt soft against Shishido's cheek, Choutarou's chin brushing the top of his head, their chests and thighs aligned. Shishido's breath stutters out of him, his heart somersaulting into the back of his throat. When Choutarou _finally_ moves, his breath comes out in one fast 'whoosh' and he feels slightly faint as they stumble off the bus.

By the time they pick a spot to eat, Shishido is almost able to swallow again without choking on his own heartbeat. Almost.

They both order yakisoba and decide to share a side of tonkatsu.

There's a small table that barely fits both their food, bags and Choutarou's long legs, but they manage to tuck everything away. Both of them are too hungry to talk much in the beginning, but halfway through Choutarou pauses long enough to dig through his bag and fish out some notes.

Shishido thinks he might be revising for a test or re-checking some notes. Sometimes he asks Shishido questions about some of the more theory-related courses. Shamelessly nosy, Shishido reaches out to tip the sheets towards him so he can get a look.

They're music sheets.

"Still that one piece?"

Choutarou makes a wry face. "I got first chair for violin," he says. "It's a big responsibility."

"Not piano?" he asks and adds a belated, "Congratulations."

"Thank you, Shishido-san," Choutarou says. "No, my teacher thinks I'm better at the violin."

Shishido frowns, recalling snippets of the endless conversations that have gone between them.

"Didn't Sakaki say you were better at the piano?" he asks, setting his bowl down.

Choutarou shrugs, clearly confused too.

"Huh," Shishido turns it over in his mind, matching it against various memories. He's heard Choutarou play both and has him seen perform with both instruments at competitions. Thing is, Choutarou is incredible on _both_. Hearing him play the violin can give him goosebumps just as well as the piano can, which is saying a lot. But Shishido still thinks he might prefer the piano. There's something… wilder and fiercer when Choutarou plays then. Freer.

"Sensei says I'm too…" Choutarou rolls his hand as he looks for the word, "uncontrolled. But he said it differently, how did- Ah! Wanton. He said I was too wanton when I played the piano."

Shishido paused mid-slurp to blink. Swallowing, he puts his bowl down again, now with an angry clack. "That's bullshit," he says rather harshly.

Choutarou blinks.

"Well," Shishido flushes. "It is. I like the piano better."

There's a pause. Choutarou shifts his legs, bumping their knees together. Then he smiles and blushes. "Yeah. Me too."

And then Choutarou bumps their legs together again, but on purpose. Shishido knows that the remark of the music teacher must've stung badly and while not exactly a compliment, Shishido's opinion has managed to patch it over.

He bumps back, at which Choutarou smiles, grateful.

Shishido drowns himself in his noodles to hide his blush.

Stomachs full and bill paid, they head down the street towards the theatre. Shishido cradles his bag against his front to rummage through the mess inside. He paws through its contents, checks the little bags on the side and eventually stops walking so he can search better. He frowns.

Choutarou walks on a few more paces before realizing Shishido has stopped. He turns back. "What's wrong?" he asks.

"I thought I still had some cash, but- oh." He remembers. He lent one of his classmates some money yesterday who'd forgotten his lunch. "Fuck."

"Shishido-san?"

"I'm sorry," Shishido grits out, annoyed with his own idiocy. Too damned scatterbrained to remember anything since he's too busy getting all hot and bothered over his friend. "I…I haven't got any money left. Fuck, sorry."

Choutarou looks down on him.

"Yeah," Shishido mutters, running both hands through his hair and grinding his teeth. "I guess we'd better catch the bus back."

He turns to go. Before he can take two steps a hand grabs the back of his shirt, hauls him back. That same hand lands between his shoulder blades, gently, to nudge him towards the theatre.

"I'll pay," Choutarou says. He smiles.

Shishido blanches. _Shit_ , he thinks, not for the first time.

 _Shit_.

***

"Popcorn?"

Shishido takes a deep, steadying breath. Damn Oshitari to hell anyway.

After clearing his throat three times he manages a raspy, "Yeah, sure."

He's been to the theatre with Choutarou countless of times. They usually split the costs; one of them gets the tickets and the other, food and drinks. Only this time they didn't, not because this is a _date_ or anything as lame as that, no, but the only yen Shishido found were a few coins hiding in the lint at the bottom of his rucksack. So, no, Choutarou isn't treating him, because Shishido is going to pay him back tomorrow. Still not a date. Of course this could never be a date in the first place, since, well, dates happen when people know they like each other. Like _that_. Cause he's pretty sure Choutarou likes him, but not _like_ like that.

Shishido knows this. It's a constant mantra in his head. _Not a date. Not a date. Not a date. Not-_

Yet his palms are sweaty and his chest is feels raw and hollow and too full and that ringing between his ears is back, making it hard to concentrate what's being said to him.

"-ido-san?"

Choutarou pokes him.

"Erg!" Ah, er, what?" Shishido asks, unconsciously clutching his arm where the lingering ghost-touch tingles, burned into his skin through his shirt.

Choutarou blinks down on him. "I got the biggest one," he repeats. "Are you all right? You're pale."

"I'm fine," Shishido blurts out, making a mental vow to end Oshitari's life on Monday. Choutarou getting a tub of popcorn and paying for that and the tickets does NOT equal a date. It doesn't.

"You don't look fine," Choutarou points out. "Are you sure you didn't get a concussion, hitting your head like that?"

"I, eh-" Shishido tries to gather his wits. "What?"

"Your head," Choutarou's hand comes up. Fingers brush trough Shishido's hair, carefully, and then pinpoint the lump with unerring accuracy.

"Ouch! _Hey-_ " he yowls and even though it doesn't hurt quite so much, those fingers need to _go_ before he does something he's gonna regret. Because y'know, it's still not a date.

Choutarou withdraws his hand, startled. "Sorry, senpai. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"S'okay," Shishido tells him, heart still thumping wildly. He feels stupid for stopping the caress and even stupider for feeling stupid about stopping it.

In the dark of the theatre it gets even worse. Somewhere Shishido realizes he's missing out on a great movie, but though his eyes are locked onto the screen all his attention is drawn towards the boy next to him. He can hear him breathe and shift his legs as he tries to find more space for them. Out of the edge of his eye, he glimpses Choutarou's hand on the armrest between them, long fingers loosely curled and relaxed. If he focuses he can even smell him, the soap he uses and something sharper and more penetrating; turpentine. From painting.

Shishido's knuckles go white on the armrests.

An elbow nudges into his side and Shishido bites his tongue as he starts violently. Choutarou motions with the popcorn, inviting him to take some. Shaking his head, Shishido stares straight ahead. He's both hungry and not, he's nervous, and his stomach churns and what if he puts his hand in the bucket right when Choutarou does and their fingers touch? Because, well, it's _still_ not a date.

The crowing act, though, occurs when they're halfway through the movie.

Choutarou shifts, yawns and stretches.

Flying out of his seat so fast he nearly topples face-first into the row before him, Shishido can only stand there, the ringing deafening between his ears. He feels faintly ill.

"Alright?" Choutarou asks, touching the back of his hand. There's a film of cold, clammy sweat all over his body. Choutarou must feel this and his eyes go wide and worried. "You're not," he concludes and starts to get up, "let's go."

"No, I'm fine," Shishido shakes his head, tries to sit back down and proceeds to stumble face-first into Choutarou's chest, crushing his nose against his partner's collarbone. "Oompf."

Around them people are muttering angrily, telling them to sit down and be quiet. Choutarou murmurs an apology as he gathers their belongings before grabbing his hand and towing him bodily along. Shishido feels his heart shoot up into his mouth and wishes for this _madness_ to pass. Manoeuvring them through the aisle, Choutarou heads for the exit, still holding his hand. The warmth spreading from Choutarou's right hand ignites his body, setting it aflame.

And he's painfully hard.

Outside, on the sidewalk near the theatre's entrance, Choutarou lets go. Shishido has to lean on his knees to make his head stop swimming. And to hide, well... let's just say to prevent awkward questions.

After a minute or two he can stand up again, though his knees feel like jelly.

Choutarou is looking at him, eyes fixed with no shame on his face, searching for clues. "Better?" he asks, nearly thrumming with concern.

"I'm sorry," Shishido manages under his breath. "I just wasted your yen and-"

"Shishido-san," Choutarou says, interrupting him. "Here, or you'll catch a cold." Hands drop a jacket over his shoulders, the cloth drowning him. It's too big and therefore isn't his own.

They don't talk much on the way home, Choutarou positive that Shishido must be concussed while Shishido tries to act normal. The jacket smells of Choutarou and is still warm from his body. Shishido closes his eyes.

That night he lies in bed, the noise a roaring that thumps in time with his heart while his brain tries to make sense of it all. Choutarou and he have been close friends for ages. But for some reason all Choutarou has to do is look at him and his blood starts to hum. And when he touches Shishido, however innocent, it the hum changes into singing, to roaring, deafeningly so, even though this isn't the first time they've touched. And it wasn't the first time he saw Choutarou play the piano. It wasn't the first time he wore Choutarou's clothing. And it definitely wasn't the first time they saw a movie together and shared popcorn.

Conclusion: he's going insane.

Because suddenly all those details that have always rolled by on a regular basis, which have always been insignificant, well... all of them suddenly _are_. Significant. Suddenly he's hyper-aware of them, second-guessing them, looking for hidden intentions. 

Worst of all? He kinda wanted it to be a date.

In the darkness of his room, cocooned under his sheets, he can admit that to himself. He knows it was not and knows that's he's being stupid and lame and girlish even, but he just can't stop himself. His stomach is a knot pressing up against his heart, making it beat in his throat, close enough he can hear a deafening doki doki between his ears. He feels strange, awkward in his own body and mind and he hopes so, so badly that this will just _stop_.

He's sick of being in love.

Lovesick.

Which is lamer than lame, because he's not some stupid girl, right? He isn't, but… somehow, he's still in love with another boy.

And can there be anything worse than kinda but sorta not wanting it to be a date? If it had been - a date that is - he'd have been the goddamn girl.

Fucking lame.


	2. Chapter 2

**Love is Noise**

"So, how was the _movie_?" Oshitari says 'movie' as though watching a film together equals getting to third base. For Oshitari, it probably does, seeing as he dated half of the school's female population before settling down with Gakuto.

Shishido just looks at him. The only thing that got him through the weekend was coming up with creative ideas to end Oshitari's life. So far death by tennis ball still sounds the best, if not the most ironic, but even though he's got a whole canister in his backpack he just doesn't have the energy to do anything about it.

He spent every night of his weekend tossing and turning in bed, absolutely refusing to masturbate and thus waking up achingly hard and frustrated after the few fitful snatches of sleep he got.

On top of that, sometime through the weekend, it hit him: he. was. in. love. with. a. boy.

Shit.

And not just any boy, but his best friend. And a kohai on top of that. Isn't it his job to, y'know, guide Choutarou and protect him from negative influences? Does that mean he _is_ a negative influence? That he needs to remove himself?

Double shit.

Does that mean he's a ho-

_No, don't think about that._

Instead Shishido scowls at Oshitari, thinking, _this is all your fault_ , and walks on to his first class of the day.

"That bad?" Oshitari asks softly, trailing behind him.

His clenches his fists. "Drop it," he whispers, " _now_."

Without looking Shishido knows that he's struck Oshitari silent and that, at least from him, is the last he'll hear about it.

***

Choutarou is late for lunch again.

Instead Shishido sits outside in the grass with Gakuto, both of them puzzling over geometry exercises. Holding the sheet above his head, Shishido lies stretched out in the grass, willing himself to understand.

Gakuto is next to him on his stomach, legs kicking up in the air. After a half an hour, he tosses his book aside. "Just ask Yuushi," he says with a careless shrug. "That's what I'm gonna do."

Shishido rolls his eyes. He's not asking Oshitari for _anything_. Certainly not after filling Shishido's head with all those warped notions. _You know._ Horror movie; check, getting treated to food; check, big bucket of popcorn; check, yawn-and-stretch… well. It's all bullshit. Coincidence.

"Talking about Yuushi…" Gakuto continues, twirling a strand of hair around his finger in a casual display and failing horribly.

Shishido flies up, teeth bared. "That bastard. Did he-"

"No," Gakuto interrupts loudly. "He didn't need to. You're about as subtle as a rhino in a china shop."

Scowling, Shishido looks back down at the exercises which start to look more like ancient Greek than anything else. His brain is going in circles, absorbing nothing useful.

"Here," Gakuto says after a moment. A package wrapped into brown paper is nudged towards him. "These might help. Y'know, to get _inspiration_."

Shishido eyes the package. " _Hooo_ , shit," he pushes it back. "No way I'm reading-"

"It's not porn!" Gakuto exclaims.

"Like hell it is!" Shishido yells back. "I'm not taking that. Do I look like an idiot to you?"

"…" Gakuto raises both eyebrows at him.

Shishido smacks him over the head. Gakuto smacks him back.

Before long he's rubbing clumps of dirt and grass against the back of Gakuto's neck, who shrieks like a girl.

Just when he's about to shove a handful of dirt down the back of Gakuto's shirt, a large shadow slants over them, blocking out the sun. Both of them stop struggling.

"Uh," Shishido says and lets Gakuto go. The latter falls back to the ground with an 'oomph'.

Choutarou grins down on them.

"Hey Choutarou," Gakuto says brightly. Then he elbows Shishido viciously and mutters, "Where are your manners?"

"Er. Hi Choutarou," Shishido blurts, before realizing he sounded like a complete tool. Jaw clenching, Shishido looks down to hide his flush. Gakuto smirks. Shishido kicks him.

Still grinning Choutarou sits down in front of them, taking out his bento. He tucks into it, ravenous. Shishido wishes he'd saved some of his. The sun filtering through the leaves casts dapples over his skin, making radiant patches that shift constantly. Shishido tries not to stare, but does anyway, over the edge of his math notes.

Next to him Gakuto jumps suddenly to his feet, even though he was lying flat on his back. Grabbing his bag, he says genially. "I gotta go, I'll see you ladies at practice," and with that he flits off.

Shishido adds another name to his mental list of people who need to be offed. Little shit.

"Don't mind him, Shishido-san," Choutarou says. "Feeling better?"

He blinks. "I was sick?"

"Your head," Choutarou clarifies.

"…my head? Oh, oh, yeah, I'm fine," Shishido says, floundering through the words.

Fucking hell, this just keeps on getting worse.

Words drying on his tongue, Shishido watches helplessly as Choutarou finishes of his food and takes out a notebook and a stack of paper.

Music again.

"Didn't you just come from that class?" Shishido points out.

Choutarou starts and looks faintly guilty. "Sorry, it's just- well," he hesitates and then stops, offering a small apologetic smile. "I'll put it away."

"No, no it's fine-"

The sheets go back into the bag. Choutarou looks at him, eyes strange and intent, as though he's about to say something more. Something _significant_. Shishido waits for it, heart starting to pound.

Opening his mouth several times, Choutarou manages some "I"s and "There"s and one "Did".

"What?" Shishido presses.

Choutarou's eyes drop to where he's pulling up handfuls of grass, before nodding towards the package. "What's that?"

It's the package Gakuto left. Full of porn. Probably. Or romance novels. Maybe even Shojo manga. "Er-" Shishido feels his cheeks burn. Fucking Oshitari. Fucking Gakuto. Fucking feelings.

Then bells rings and Shishido heaves a sigh of relief, before realizing that that was probably not what Choutarou wanted to say. They pack their bags and head back towards the building.

"What did you want to say?" Shishido asks as they jog up the stairs.

Choutarou eyes dart away, focussing ahead. "Say?"

"Just now," Shishido insists, feeling that Choutarou is holding something back.

"Oh," Choutarou still doesn't look at him. "I already forgot. I guess it wasn't important, ne?"

Shishido feels a prick of anger. "I didn't sound like-" but then he trips on the last damned step and pitches forward.

 _This is gonna hurt_ , Shishido thinks stupidly.

Arms grab him from behind, yanking him to a stop. Shishido peels one eye open, then the other. And blinks.

"Careful," Choutarou says softly, the word stirring the hair at his temple.

It is then that Shishido realizes how serious this is. He's sixteen. He knows all about getting hard-ons on the most inappropriate moments of the day, or getting them in completely inappropriate situations. Situations that aren't even sexy, at that.

This though…

This is something else.

It feels like a punch low in the gut, painful, sharp and numbing.

Being pressed up against Choutarou on the bus, well, that was bad enough. But there's arms around him now, wrapped around his torso, and large hands curl in the fabric of his shirt. He can feel Choutarou moulded against his body, the difference in height making it so that he fits perfectly along the line of his body. His lips are somewhere next to his right ear and Shishido would only have to tilt his head sideways to meet them with his.

Whoa. Back up. Wait. Pause.

_What?_

It's the first time he's _consciously_ thought about kissing Choutarou. There was that thing with Choutarou's damnable big and beautiful hands, and the improper erections. There was that dream, he remembers now, where Choutarou kissed him.

Now though it is broad daylight and they are on the middle of the school staircase, the one leading to the front entrance, and Shishido is really contemplating just turning his head and touching their lips together.

Which is all nice and twisted and wrong.

But.

Damn.

Choutarou holding onto him like that, from behind, hands on his body… they would need to be a little lower… and no clothes of course… and somewhere private.

Damn. Oh yeah.

All that flashes like a crack of lightning through Shishido's mind, a deafening split-second, because in reality Choutarou let go of him immediately.

Shishido staggers, dazed.

"You okay?" Choutarou asks him, peering into his face worriedly. "You've gone white! Is that headache troubling you again?"

"It-it's fine, let's just-" he flaps a hand at the doors.

Choutarou checks his watch. "Ah! I'm going to be late," and with that he sprints off, shouting something about practice.

For a quite some time, Shishido just stands there, shell-shocked. Then he stumbles almost drunkenly into the building and doesn't go to class.

He's never masturbated at school before, not even after practice in the showers. It's something private. He doesn't care that Oshitari does it, making it sound as though you've accidentally called the sex-line, he doesn't care that everybody else does it, in variable degrees of modesty. He doesn't care that jacking off is a fact of life. He only does it when he's at home and _alone_ , locked away in the privacy of his room.

It's the first time he does it at school, in the bathroom at that, not even with the rush of a shower to cloak the noises, making them sound less perverse. He hates that he's doing it now and hates even more that it is the most intense orgasm of his life.

Afterward Shishido sits against the door, head in his hands, and thinks desperately, _what am I going to do?_

***

Tennis makes things better.

Even though he's playing Choutarou, which means needing to keep his eyes locked tight on him to read his moves. He can see how Choutarou tries to go blank, make himself as unreadable as possible. Despite that, Shishido finds it easy to see where he'll go. Not that Choutarou doesn't make him work like hell for every single point, because even though he knows Choutarou's tennis inside out, he's still too damn good at it.

They've even enough time for Shishido to work on his split-step. It's something he stole from Kirihara. Or Echizen, whatever. His footwork is fast and nimble enough to pull it off, and yet, like all his more special moves, he has to force it. It doesn't come naturally. His first instinct is to run down the ball. Most of the time this works. Sometimes it doesn't. And that's when he needs to learn to split-step. Right now he loses more points when he uses his split-stepping than he wins, but the idea is to do it over and over and over until it's an automatic reaction. Like catching an 200 km/h serve barehanded.

He finds his balance with Choutarou again, even though they're opponents. This is familiar. It's equal ground. It is something he can understand. Choutarou is, by now, probably better at tennis than him. It comes to him more naturally. But no matter if Shishido has to force his own ability, he practices twice as much as Choutarou, and chases after the shots he won't be able to get. Now he sometimes _does_ get those impossible shots and those chances grow more frequently each time he practices.

As he started to grow into his body, his height, Choutarou learned to take advantage of it with Shishido's help. Now he packs power. He hits hard and serves faster than ever.

Choutarou is trying to tire him out, hitting shots alternately far left and right, deep into his court when he's near the net or drop-shots when he's at the baseline.

"You're gonna have to do better than that!" Shishido tells him, able to go on like this for _hours_ still.

"Alright," Choutarou says cheerfully, the muscles in his arms bunching, about to put all his strength, the legendary speed, into his next shot.

Gripping his racket two-handed, Shishido backs up. With all the power he has poured into one shot, Shishido knows he'll feel the impact all the way down to the tips of his toes.

Choutarou hits.

It's a volley, even though he's standing smack-dab in the middle of his court, and he simply lets the ball bounce on his racket-frame with his hands soft, making it a drop-shot.

Shishido curses, dashes towards the net, but has to lob it.

Choutarou smashes.

The racket flies clear out of his hands.

"Better?" Choutarou asks between heavy breaths, grinning.

Shishido makes a wobbly scowl, distracted. Something about Choutarou standing there, sweating and panting, his lips parted and moist when he licks them… it's making Shishido's mind grab that image and turn it into something else entirely. Maybe Choutarou pinned to the bed gasping, or no- not that, but. Above him, eyes dark and gleaming, hands as soft on Shishido's body as they were just now when making that drop-shot and as clever as when he plays the piano, long and nimble and-

" _Shishido-san!_ "

It's like being smacked in the face. Shishido staggers. "What?"

"I said: I can't believe you made it to the net!" Choutarou repeats, but the cheer's gone out of his face. "Is your head hurting? Do you need to sit down?" he adds, stepping closer towards the net, eyes narrowed as he studies Shishido's face.

"No, no, I'm fine, Choutarou," he says, casting his eyes down. How the hell can he meet those dark, sincere and worried eyes when he's thinking about such things.

Gross.

Stupid.

Lame.

Only. It's not.

His heart starts to thump more insistently as he thinks about it, rising like a tsunami until it's in his head, a deafening _doki doki._

" _Shishido-san!_ "

"Sorry," Shishido mutters, eyes still glued to the grubby tips of his sneakers, filthy white against the rich green of the courts. Sweat tickles down his spine.

"Are you alright?" Choutarou asks him, coming as close as he can with the net holding him back. "Let's take a break."

"No, I said I'm fine!" Shishido repeats, harsher than he means to.

Choutarou takes a step back. "Sorry, senpai. I didn't mean to-"

"Look, it's _fine_ , alright?" Shishido tries to soothe, but his voice sounds brittle and breaks on the last syllable. "Let's just play."

"...Okay."

They play.

But the harmony is disrupted. Shishido's fault. Choutarou's playfulness and confidence is leeched away by the unwarranted sharpness of Shishido's response. Shishido feels disgusted with himself, both for losing his cool and for thinking about things like that. For wanting it and wanting to do it with another boy. His kohai to the boot. And if you're gonna be sappy about it... isn't love supposed to be a good thing?

_Ik-kyu-_

Something beautiful and pure?

_Nyu..._

Something natural?

_KON!_

There's a _twock_ and Shishido looks up. Just in time to receive a scud serve right to the face.

The courts swoop up like the sea, striking him from behind. The back of his head, shoulders, elbows, and tailbone slam against concrete. The air is knocked from his lungs. The sky swallows him, blue and endless before his eyes. Shishido lies on his back and tries to draw air into his lungs.

The first try is with Choutarou at his side, propping him up with one am around his waist and the other thumping between his shoulder-blades. By the fourth try, Choutarou's other hand is preventing him from folding in on himself and Shishido manages to get a good gasp of air.

Once.

Twice.

And again.

"I'm fine," he chokes out. "Let go."

Choutarou's hand is positively huge on his midriff, a lop-sided, five-pointed star splaying against his torso, pushing his spine back, his lungs clear.

"I'm sorry," he says, agonized. "I knew we should've taken a break. I'm sorry senpai-"

"I'm alright," Shishido repeats, more clear. "Let go, stop-"

His head is spinning, his cheek throbbing. Teeth seem loose in their sockets. His tailbone smarts. Hurting all over, the pain is another kind of heartbeat. But Choutarou is against his back, guiding Shishido to tip back as to lean against him, the hand a fire-brand on his sternum through his jersey. He's aroused, aching with it, and if Choutarou looks down he'll see-

"Choutarou," Shishido repeats firmly, and starts to struggle to pull away, "let go. Now."

"Sorry," Choutarou whispers, misinterpreting his tone. "Shishido-san, really. I'm so, so sorry-"

" _Stop touching me!_ " Shishido exclaims, panicked, and wrenches loose.

He trips to his knees and then stands up, falling half into the net. Hands grab his shoulders, keep him up.

Atobe looks at him, blue eyes wide.

"Shishido," he says.

"I'm fine." Shishido brushes down his shorts, lungs still burning from the impact. "I was distracted. My fault."

The hands fall away after a moment, but Atobe catches his eyes and looks at him, through him, into him.

"Shishido," he says again, but strangely hushed.

He _knows_.

Shishido looks away, half-turning.

Choutarou is still kneeling where he Shishido left him, his lips flat, eyes on the curled fists resting on his thighs. The jersey sticks to his skin with the sweat from their game.

"It's okay, Choutarou," he manages, his own voice strange in the hushed silence. "It was my fault. Thanks, by the way."

Brown eyes remain down-cast. Fair, sweat-curled hair is all Shishido can see from his head. "You should go to the sick-bay, Shishido-senpai," Choutarou murmurs, his voice thick.

Nodding, more to himself, Shishido stumbles towards the bench. Behind him, Choutarou stays kneeling. Cheek pulsating as though there's a second heart locked away behind it, Shishido puts away his racket and wipes some sweat away from his face. His lungs burn. Going to the sick-bay isn't such a bad idea so he lurches towards the exit of the courts.

"Shishido," Atobe says, yet again.

In his Buchou voice.

Sucks to be him, because he isn't captain of the team right now and Shishido really couldn't care less.

" _Shishido!_ "

The voice is right behind him. Shishido whirls, a bit too dramatically because his knees wobble in protest, but he still manages to bite out an annoyed, "What?"

"You play doubles."

Shishido blinks. "Do you really-"

"Shishido."

"Atobe," he returns, acid in his voice. "I'm kinda busy here. I'm really not in the mood to-"

"Doubles is played with two."

"Wha-"

"There's a bond between doubles partners."

"What are-"

"This bond is strong, helped along by a different dynamic than even friendship."

"The hell are-"

"And yet this bond is delicate, heavily influenced by the harmony that exists by two players."

Shishido just looks at him, uncomprehending.

"A change of dynamic is not detrimental to the bond. When welcomed and embraced by both players it serves to enhance the combination, leading, to some extreme cases, to synchro."

"Why the hell are we talking about Seigaku? We're playing Yamabuki next week, idiot!"

"Shut up, you oblivious fool; I'm trying to tell you something!"

"Atobe! I just took a tennis ball to my face. One of Choutarou's. My teeth are loose in their sockets. We can talk strategy after I get the nurse to check whether they're still in my head!" Shishido explodes, utterly annoyed.

Atobe sighs, tipping his head back to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Shishido."

"Yeah?"

"I know that, being the commoner you are, it is sometimes too hard to see the trees in the woods. Look before you. See the trees," he says, giving Shishido a look laden with weighty knowledge.

Shishido looks. The closest tree is right beyond the boundaries of the tennis courts, currently separated by the chain-link fence.

"Do you see the tree?"

"…yeah?"

"Now, take a moment to study it. Look at the grain of the wood, look at how strong the tree has grown. What does it signify?"

Shishido wonders if Atobe finally really lost it. He's had his suspicions ever since that cackling-fest he had with Echizen way back in third year. But… trees?

"It's a maple?" he offers tentatively.

Atobe looks at him, flat and disgusted. "I suppose that for you, even something as simple as this is too complicated to grasp." And with that, he stalks off, as though Shishido's ignorance about trees is a rod up his ass.

Shishido stands there for a moment, taking a moment to appreciate the utter ludicrousness of the situation just now, before finally walking off to the sick-bay.

He always knew Atobe was full of shit.

***

"Choutarou."

"Yes?"

"It's alright," Shishido tells him, not liking the way his best friend goes quiet and withdrawn. "It was just an accident."

They're walking to the bus stop together. It was Atobe's turn to pick Jiroh up that morning, so Shishido took the bus. The sakuras are in full bloom, branches straining under the weight of the flowers. It's warm for such an early day in spring, the sun clear and yellow overhead. A beautiful day. Yet Shishido feels miserable and helpless, feeling his grip on the situation waver. He tries hard to make things go back to normal, but there's this scenario running rampant in his mind in which Choutarou will grab him, any moment now, and push him up against the wall. And kiss him. Over and over.

Unlikely to happen, since Choutarou is 1) normal and 2) not exactly in a good mood. For some reason he's taken this little incident and is over dramatizing it in his head. Shishido wonders why, especially since Choutarou hit him on the mouth once before, full-fisted, by accident of course, and it only took Shishido's genuine assurance that it was fine.

Now though...

"Choutarou?'

"Yes, Shishido-san?'

"Stop it."

They reach the stop. There's nobody there anymore; just the two of them. It warmed Shishido to see Choutarou waiting for him when he returned from the sickbay, but there's nothing alright about this. On some unconscious level Choutarou is probably able to sense Shishido's… gay-vibes. His wrongness. And is therefore uncomfortable. There must be some way to fix this.

They've been so close, best of friends, partners for all this time. And now Shishido looks at him and doesn't remember how to talk to him. The expressions on Choutarou's face are suddenly new, laden with new meanings and possible implications. It's third year all over again, salvaging his regular's spot with a person he didn't really know. Only now he wants to… to do things to Choutarou. Absolutely filthy things that seem too damn good despite being wrong.

He needs to stop.

But it is kinda hard when even so much as looking at Choutarou's throat, watching his Adam's Apple bob when he swallows, is quite enough to make him so damned hot. It takes a physical effort to stop himself from tearing the clothes from Choutarou's body and then kiss him deep, so deep, until he finds a way to strip Choutarou bare and crawl past his skin, into his body.

Instead he looks at Choutarou, forcing himself, and watches him with the eyes of a doubles partner. Choutarou looks pretty bad, all the quiet resolve gone, his eyes empty.

"What's wrong?" he asks, moving so he's standing in front of him.

"I'm fine, Shishido-san. Honest," he smiles.

Shishido hates that little bland smile with the passion of a thousand suns.

Doesn't he trust him?

Aren't they friends?

Best friends?

Partners?

Although, on retrospect, Choutarou has a damn good reason not to trust him. But he still feels a little indignant despite the common sense butting in.

"Your cheek is going purple," Choutarou says in a small voice. His hand comes up.

It's as though someone switched on the slow-mo effect. Shishido sees Choutarou's hand leave his side, move up as his finger unfurl, high and higher, until his hand is opened and reaching for his face.

Shishido feels all the blood leave his face as it rushes down into the pit of his stomach -and lower.

 _Yes, oh please yes,_ he thinks.

Shishido takes a step back

The tip of Choutarou's index finger barely brushes the bruise and then falls impotently to his side, lifeless. His eyes are huge, round and shimmering and absolutely gorgeous.

"It hurts," Shishido says.

Choutarou doesn't say anything. He stands there looking at him, swallowing, his mouth vulnerable. There's only the wind rushing through the trees and petals snowing down around them. They pile on Choutarou's broad shoulders, get caught in his hair.

"Shishido-san," he whispers, throat bobbing.

Tires squeak. People stream around them on the sidewalk. Choutarou stays where he is.

"Shishido-san," he repeats, even softer. "I-"

"Your bus is here," Shishido points out, confused when Choutarou doesn't move, just stands there with his knuckles going white on the strap of tennis bag.

Then there's a little stiff nod and Choutarou gets on. The bus pulls away from the curb, but not before he manages the re-locate Choutarou in the press of bodies, his back towards the window.

Odd. Usually he always stands facing, so he can lift his hand in goodbye or smile one last time.

The bus disappears around the corner, the stench of exhaust clouding along the lane. Shishido feels as though he's missed a step while going down a staircase, but doesn't know why.

Back home, his stomach still churns and he barely eats half of what he usually does.

"Not feeling well?" his father asks, frowning at his half-full bowl.

Shishido shrugs and gives a small, lop-sided smile. The small bits of broiled fish he did swallow down now sit congealing in the pit of his stomach.

"I know," his aniki says, grinning from around a mouthful of half-chewed food. "Ryou-chan's in _lurve_."

Sweat drips down Shishido's spine, the lump of food becomes a brick of ice.

"Aniki!" he hisses, his cheeks changing red, quick as a stoplight.

"No appetite, wistful sighs, absentminded, no conversation, staring into space, no sleep… because's he's too busy-"

" _Shut up!_ " Shishido yells, quite capable of leaping over the table to tackle his brother and smother him.

"Okaa-san had to wash your sheets again today- _AAARGH!_ GERROF, YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

His brother his taller and heavier than him, probably stronger. But Sosuke spends the time acting like the intellectual type, the sensitive guy, playing chess and reading poetry. Both of them know he's just as much into sports as Shishido is, that it's just a façade to score with the girls. Shishido _does_ work out and knows the limits of his body and also its strengths, so he digs his fingers in until his aniki squeals like a pig.

"Boys! BOYS!!" his father his roaring. "ENOUGH!"

Shishido manages to get his legs around his brother ribs, choking him, and gets hold of Sosuke's briefs (briefs! Fucking hell and _he's_ the queer?) and starts to pull. Sosuke yelps as the fabric mangles his testicles and starts to flail. Shishido ignores him and yanks harder with vicious pleasure.

"Stop, Ryou," his mother says quite reasonably.

Shishido stops.

"Clean up your mess and go to your room," she continues.

Shishido, feeling more like an ass than ever, does as she says.

It figures that as soon as he flops down on his bed his stomach rumbles hungrily.

***

There's a knock on his door.

Shishido is sitting against the headboard with is arms wrapped around his legs, his stomach still complaining. He tilts his head when the door opens. Sosuke comes in, looks at him, and throws a melon pan on his bed. Shishido shifts to reach for it, but the sudden sight of it makes his stomach squeeze nauseatingly, all hunger gone. Instead he watches his brother close the door shut behind and walk over. Wordlessly he crawls onto the bed next to him. It's small for someone like Shishido and it barely fits Sosuke, too. Their shoulders and hips press together.

He smells pretty bad, like stale sweat and unwashed socks. Shishido would tell him that if he didn't need a shower himself.

"Okaa-san send you to apologize?" Shishido asks into the stagnant silence.

Ever since dinner Shishido has been sitting on his bed like this, not even having the energy to switch the light on when the sun started to set. The whole room is cast in twilight, where the mix between light and dark is so exact your eyes have trouble focussing. In the dark Sosuke looks a lot like their father, broad, strong, chiseled.

"No," Sosuke says. "She didn't."

Shishido looks at him, wanting him gone from his room, but too listless to do anything about it.

"But sorry anyway," Sosuke adds after a moment.

Most people'd reply 'me too' or 'I'm sorry, too'. Shishido rubs the heel of his hand over a dark scab on his knee and instead says softly, "Yeah."

Sosuke bumps their shoulders.

After a long pause where only their breathing is heard, he does it again, but more teasingly. " _Ryouu-oou_."

"…What?"

"Was I right?"

Shishido's fingers falter, stray and accidentally take the whole scab off. Fresh blood wells up in the wound. On the pretence of grabbing tissues, Shishido turns away from him, making Sosuke talk to his shoulder.

"I'm right, aren't I," Sosuke continues from behind him. "My little brother, finally growing up-"

"Aniki," Shishido snaps, "I mean it. Shut the fuck up about it."

There's a sudden silence, one fraught with tension and unspoken words. Shishido tips his head, hiding his expression.

"Oh," Sosuke suddenly goes, and starts to squirm uncomfortably. "Oh, I see."

"You don't see shit," Shishido snarls. "Get out."

Sosuke is winding the sheets around his hands, over and over, studiously avoiding Shishido's sharp look. He doesn't get off the bed.

"It's Choutarou-kun, isn't it?"

"Get _out_ , aniki!" Shishido repeats threateningly, but his voice goes high, wild and breaks on the last syllable.

Outside a dog barks and a train can be heard in the distance.

The room is fully dark now, but through the open window a yellowish haze falls in from the streetlight, turning Sosuke's hair bronze. His face is contrasted in harsh shadows. Shishido doesn't see this. Head bowed, he stares hard at his dirty knees. Something warm and wet falls on the back of his arms, where they lie curled in his lap.

"What is it with you and situations like this?" Sosuke asks him. "Is it because you're the second son? I was never this difficult."

Good observation. Shishido would like to know this, too. It's not as though he goes looking for trouble. Trouble just comes to him.

Most of the time.

"You're being dumb," Sosuke continues. "I think okaa-san already kinda knows."

Shishido stops breathing.

"It's okay," Sosuke goes on, patting him on the head. "Don't worry about it."

"Easy for you to say," Shishido hisses.

Sosuke chuckles. Shishido punches him in the shoulder.

More silence. This one easier, with softer edges.

"So," Sosuke says and his voice comes out awkwardly jovial. "About this… _crisis_ of yours, do you know-"

"Oh no, no no," Shishido says, sitting up and inching away from his brother. "Tell me this is not the birds and the bees. It's not, right?"

Sosuke scoffs, "No, moron. I'm not going to talk about the birds and the bees. If you didn't know about the birds and the bees by now you'd be a disgrace to all of mankind."

"I go to Hyotei," Shishido snorts. "I knew about the birds and the bees ages before you did. Oshitari is on my team. That's like albatrosses and tarantulas."

"…what?"

"It is!"

"You're not making se- _oh_ , forget it," Sosuke huffs and shoves him. "Are you going to let me be the supportive older brother or are you just going to be a brat?"

"Uhm," Shishido says, considering.

"Brat," Sosuke says and _finally_ gets off the bed. "Eat your melon pan. You're scrawny enough as it is."

"Well, you've got a fat ass."

"Squirt."

"Gorilla."

Light slants into the room as Sosuke opens the door. He steps into the hallway and pulls the door closed behind him. Right before it clicks shut, however, he pokes his head through the gap and says, "What I wanted to say was: I think you're making it harder on yourself than necessary."

The door clicks shut.

Shishido sighs. Then he grabs the melon pan and tears open the foil wrapper.

He's hungry.

And he's gonna tell Choutarou tomorrow.

***

Now that's he hacked through the emotional knot, things feel smoother, more streamlined. Not that he's not nervous or worried because he is. Very very much.

He's putting their friendship on the line.

He's putting their doubles partnership on the line.

He's putting tennis on the line.

He's putting his heart on the line.

And if Choutarou rejects him, something to which Shishido is half-resigned to accept already, then he'll suck it up and respect that. But not without a fight. He'll give it his all. Right now there's not even a shade of doubt on his mind that he needs to do this, because if he doesn't, the whirlwind of feelings inside will disrupt their friendship, their harmony, their… _wa_ , if you will.

His head is clear when he wakes up, his heart pounds, but he's balanced within himself. It's always easier for him when he makes the Decision. Like when vowing to win his regular's spot back? Same thing, the fury, the hurt, the humiliation, it didn't disappear, but was put aside while he fought on onward.

For a moment he lies on his back in bed, the thoughts rattling through his head. Maybe it isn't the best time to do this. The Prefectuals are looming ahead. If this blows up in his face, _bad_ , then there's no way they can play together against Yamabuki.

Shishido forces himself to put it all aside, these things for the future he can't control. Instead he curls on his side, slips his hand under the elastic of his boxers. His breath catches when he imagines another hand, larger, longer, more elegant fingers, around him. After, it takes a while to calm his breathing and for the heath to leave his face. He still feels awful for doing it, jerking off while thinking about Choutarou, but he'd be a big fat liar if he pretended that he didn't anyway.

 _You're making the right decision_ , Shishido tells himself. _Can't go on like this._

After breakfast, when he's manhandling his bike out of the shed, Sosuke saunters past and trips him up, so Shishido steps on the back of his shoes. This leads to a tussle, with Sosuke in the lead as he drags Shishido's shirt over his head, until his arms stick up in the air, caught in the fabric. Their mother opens the window and threatens them with a sweet, gentle smile. They break up their fight and Shishido watches his brother walk away, a slight smile on his face. As nice as his brother was last night, it is good to see everything normal again. The world would be a strange place if his brother were to be, well, _nice_.

Jiroh is already waiting for him outside this time around. Shishido speeds towards him at full power, wanting to see if he can make Jiroh jump out of the way. He doesn't. He never does, no matter how fast or angry Shishido is pedaling. At the last possible moment, he breaks. The rubber shrieks in agony. The front wheel halts right between Jiroh's thighs, the headlamp brushing his uniform shirt.

"Ohayo!" Jiroh says cheerfully, not even blinking an eye.

Shishido arches an eyebrow at him.

Jiroh smirks.

"One of these days I'm not gonna be able to brake," Shishido tells him mildly. "And you'll end up castrated."

Jiroh straddles the bike behind him and curls his hands around Shishido's belt, hanging on. Together, they kick off.

"Nah," Jiroh says. "Your reflexes are too good."

Shishido peers over his shoulder, wanting to check what kind of expression is on Jiroh's face when saying something like that, but the bike swerves, and the both of them nearly crash into some bushes.

"Close one," Shishido says, laughing.

"You're cheerful," Jiroh says, almost suspiciously. "What happened?" he adds, even more suspiciously.

Shishido wonders what to tell him that'll make him shut up from the first. If Jiroh puts his mind to wrangling the information out of Shishido he _will_ , no matter what. He takes a moment to maneuver them along the campus, around the fountain, towards the parking lot. Jiroh springs off his bike as it is still moving, making it easier for Shishido to make a graceful stop, not like last time when they crashed to a painful halt against some other bikes.

"I talked about my feelings," he concedes eventually, as he's parking his bike.

Jiroh turns the kind of grin on him he uses when he spots Marui Bunta at the tournaments. Or, y'know, like that one time Atobe accidentally dropped his towel, courtesy of Oshitari. He didn't want to think about that last one though. _Ugh_ , the nightmares.

"That's awesome!" he exclaims, enthused.

"Sure," Shishido agrees, because it's easier to agree than to argue with Jiroh.

"That's real, real _mhaaaaaaaaaaw_ good-" Jiroh's mouth opens wide in a yawn mid-sentence.

As he stands there, Jiroh blinks and leans in. Closer, closer. Closer. And then he's drooping into Shishido and drooling on his shoulder.

"Goddammit," Shishido tells him. "Wake up."

In the end, he gently leans Jiroh against the wall and leaves him where he is. Atobe will send Kabaji looking for him soon enough. Shishido's primary objective has everything to do with locating Choutarou and nothing to do with dragging Jiroh bodily towards the clubhouse.

And that's where his plans go awry.

Choutarou isn't there when he arrives.

Choutarou doesn't arrive, breathless and smiling, as they're changing in the clubhouse.

Choutarou hasn't arrived when they spill out onto the courts.

Practice is spent working on his serve and his split-step with one of his senpais. He focusses, does his best, but his heart isn't behind it. His gut-instinct is turning itself over and over, warning him.

Choutarou arrives about ten minutes before the session is over. Everything about him is all over the place and falls apart completely when the captain tears into him like a vulture falling on a defenceless hare. Saito-buchou is short, stocky and loves nothing more the yelling right in your face, spittle spraying at you like a bull foaming at the mouth. Too bad for Atobe that he's _really_ damn good at tennis, so damn good that he's yet to defeat him.

"Do you want to be on this team or not, Ohtori?" he's yelling into his face, color high.

Even from all the way across the courts, Shishido can see the spray of saliva sprinkling into the air, Choutarou's only saving grace being that he's so much taller than Saito that he stands clear of it.

" _Of course_!" Choutarou assures him, agonized. "Of course."

"Then you had better start arriving on time!" Saito shrieks, squaring his bulky frame, dominant and enraged, but only looking sort of sad compared to Choutarou, who almost has to bend at the shoulders to look properly at him and whose shoulders are wider, despite his leaner look. That does not make Saito any less in charge, nor his threats idle ones. "Tomorrow you had _better_ be there, if you are not then you can kiss your regular's spot _and that of your partner's,_ goodbye, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes."

" _Do I?_ " he sneers, peering rudely into his face.

"Chrystal, buchou," Choutarou says, staring right back in challenge.

"I should hope. And don't bother changing, practice is as good as over," and with that he storms away over the courts to work out his frustration by verbally abusing -and spit-showering- some other first years. Successfully this time.

Shishido, having all forgotten about the practised speech, about anything to do with wanting to touch or being touched by Choutarou, jogs up towards him. "The hell, Choutarou?!"

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Shishido-san," Choutarou says, hands clenching into angry knots.

"How the hell can you not be here on time?" he goes on, "Do you have any idea how lucky we are to be regulars?"

"Yes, I do," Choutarou says, voice thick.

"Whatever it is Choutarou, it doesn't matter, but you had better figure out where your priorities lie," Shishido impresses on him, thanking both their lucky stars that the captain didn't boot them off the team in the first place. Hyotei's high school team is worse than middle school. It wouldn't be lying to say that people'd kill to get one of the regular's spots. Scouts are rumored to keep an extra-sharp eye on Hyotei, along with Rikkai Dai. The chances of going pro when graduating from Hyotei if having been a regular are high. Much, much higher than anywhere else. Dreams become a reality here.

Shishido has that in mind while he looks at Choutarou's face, knowing that he's thought about it, too. Doubles, the both of them. Pro.

But Choutarou is obviously not thinking about this. His eyes are wounded, dark and jagged. His mouth is slightly open, sucking in a breath as though Shishido punched him in the stomach. Before he can say anything else, Choutarou nods, stiffly, and all but runs off. Startled, Shishido gapes at his retreating back, knowing he's made a _huge_ mistake, but unable to pin-point what it is.

Something whacks him, hard, across the back of his head.

It's Hiyoshi. Kabaji stands a pace or two behind him.

"Oi!" he protests, rounding on him. "Show some respect you little-"

"How can _you_ not know?" Hiyoshi hisses, prodding his finger viciously into Shishido's sternum. "You're his best friend. His doubles partner."

"Know?" Shishido echoes numbly. "Know what?" The ice-cold sensation of dread returns. "What's going on? Kabaji?"

Kabaji looks at Hiyoshi.

"You really don't know?" Hiyoshi exclaims.

Shishido shakes his head. "Know what? What's wrong with him?"

Hiyoshi visibly fights for restraint, muttering something vaguely under his breath that sounds like 'imbeciles, the whole lot of them'. Then he takes a step closer. "Didn't you notice anything about him lately?"

"Yes, I- yes. He seems troubled, but he doesn't want to talk about it-" Shishido blurts out, combing the little details out of the memories, noting Choutarou's little smiles like chips of ice, the way he's always late, or just barely in time, and most importantly; his silences.

 _Shishido-san. I…_ I what?

"His music practice overlaps with tennis," Hiyoshi says sharply. "Almost every single session. He's been going during lunch break to try and salvage the time he misses when he attends tennis practice. He's going to have to quit."

Shishido, unable to help himself, gropes for the first thing he can get a hold off - the chainlink fence - and clutches on to it, face becoming bloodless enough for his lips to go numb. "He's gonna-" his stomach heaves and Shishido turns his face to hide it. "He's gonna quit tennis?"

" _No_ ," Hiyoshi tsks. "Don't you ever shut up and listen?"

"He still has to choose," Kabaji points out, his bass rumbling up from the pit of his stomach. Always it comes as a bit of shock when he talks, his long silences making the sound of his voice even more startling. "You really didn't help things when you said 'it doesn't matter'. No disrespect, senpai. Just saying," he adds.

Of course it matters, of course it does, it matters everything. It's music. It's Choutarou playing on the piano, free and wild and darker than usual and absolutely fucking perfect.

" _Oh shit_ ," he whispers, covering his face with a trembling hand.

Hiyoshi throws up his arms in the air, rolling his eyes. "Ka- _ching_. It seems he's finally got it." Kabaji slants a disapproving glance Hiyoshi and nudges him. "No, disrespect," Hiyoshi adds, not meaning a word of it.

"Oh fuck. Oh hell. What do I say to him?" Shishido demands of himself. _How are you going to fix this, you absolute idiot?!_

"Apologize," Hiyoshi says in a droll little voice. "Try it. It tends to work."

"Yeah, but I needed to. I'll need to-" _what? Shit, how do I fix this? How do I fix this and tell him he gets me all hot and bothered? You don't, that's what. But you have to._

_I need to._

Kabaji takes pity on him. Big, kind, strong Kabaji. He drops a hand on Shishido's shoulder, whose knees nearly buckle. Dark, dark eyes bore into his, a world of wisdom glimmering behind the gaze. He's about to impart some deep and fundamental knowledge onto Shishido, handing him the means to make things right again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Hiyoshi leaning forward too, clearly sensing the same tangible sagaciousness radiating from Kabaji.

Kabaji clears his throat.

Both Shishido and Hiyoshi nod encouragingly.

"You need to put the man into ro _man_ ce," he says.

After a beat Shishido goes, "huh?"

Hiyoshi makes a strangled sound, as though the pun went down the wrong way and stalks off, muttering about transfers to Seigaku, Yamabuki, _anywhere_ , but here.

"Seriously, though," Kabaji speaks up again, as soon as Hiyoshi is out of earshot.

Guarded, Shishido eyes him, weary for what kind of nonsense he'll have to deal with next. Trees and porn manuals and movie dates and feelings, he can only take so much and be expected to come out of it mentally sane.

"Just talk to him."

***

When the bell rings loud and obnoxious, signalling the end of the day, Shishido is already packed and waiting. He flies up from his chair, out of the class, races at neck-breaking speed down the stairs, one, two, three floors down. To his great distress Choutarou's classmates have already spilled out into the hallway, dispersing. Hiyoshi sees him coming, points down the hallway leading outside. Shishido takes off, accidentally knocking the books out of a girl's hands, and can only spare a yell of an apology as he leaves her to gather the mess.

Outside the sky is a hard, white slate and rain is in the air, waiting to break loose. It's an charged atmosphere and it presses on the back of Shishido's neck as he sprints down the elegant lanes, jumps up on the edge of the fountain to bypass the usual knot of students lingering there, runs along the rim, and jumps back off.

Clearing from the crowd, he skids to a stop and looks around.

Girls tittering, swishing their skirts, boys loud and lounging. First years, second years, third years, teachers. And then, a glimpse of fair, tousled hair, a tall someone striding away over the grass, between the trees.

Shishido runs after him.

"Choutarou!"

Shoulder tense and it seems as though he might actually start to walk a little faster.

" _Choutarou!_ "

Some students give him an odd look as he leaps straight between them into the bushes, branches slapping his legs and midriff, to push past. Choutarou might have long legs, but Shishido has always been faster. He cuts him off, nearly stumbling into him, grabbing onto Choutarou's shoulders to stop him, making them both careen into each other with the force of his momentum. They stagger sideways a few paces.

"Wait- wait up…." he gasps, a little out of breath, but keeping a grip on him all the same. Seeing how wound-up his friend appears, it wouldn't come as a surprise he'd run off given the chance.

Choutarou deliberately uses his height to look over the top of Shishido's head. "Sorry, I'm in a hurry. I need to be home-"

"Bullshit," Shishido says, holding on harder, "don't lie. I can tell."

"I'm not-"

"Listen," Shishido says urgently. "I-I _know_ all right?"

Under the palms of his hands, he can feel how Choutarou goes very, very still. Shishido gathers himself. Supportive, be supportive. He swore to himself to think about what Choutarou wanted. It's music. If that's what he wants, then… Even thinking about it is enough to make him nauseous, the idea that Choutarou just might chose music over tennis… over him. But they're friends, too. And isn't it a best friend's job to have his partner's back, no matter what? He's not always selfish, and when it concerns Choutarou, Shishido strives to be anything but.

"Know?" Choutarou whispers. "You know. Did. Did Hiyoshi tell you?"

Shishido looks at him, and sees his absolutely horrified expression.

"Yeah," Shishido nods. Then he realizes he's still holding on to him, so he snatches his hands away instantly.

Choutarou flinches. "I'm _sorry_ , Shishi-"

"No. Listen, it's alright, you know. Maybe it _is_ better if…" Shishido swallows past the knot in his throat. "If you chose music."

"You-" Choutarou looks down sharply, breaking their gaze. His voice comes out sounding distorted, dislocated when he asks, "Then… what will you do?"

"I don't know," Shishido answers, honestly. "Play singles, I guess. I can't play doubles with anybody else. Not after-"

"I see," Choutarou grits out. Hair tumbles into his eyes, curls hiding his face. "Wouldn't want to- I see."

There's something wrong. He's fucked up again.

"Choutarou-"

"No, I. I understand," Choutarou steps away from him. His voice breaks, the way it once might have when he was fourteen. "I need to go. I'm sorry, Shishido-san."

And he's gone, walking away with his head down, the muscles in his neck and shoulders corded painfully taut.

Shishido stands there, empty, and doesn't understand what went wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

**Love is Noise**

The next day finds Shishido walking towards the courts, head down, exhausted. He spend yesterday evening trying to call Choutarou, over and over and over and over until the phone battery died. This morning, more than an hour early, Shishido had hung around the main gates in hopes of catching him before class. During lunch break he'd prowled the grounds, the cafeteria, the hallways. Nothing.

He knows that he must've said something wrong, but he's re-played the conversation over a million times in his head. Wasn't he supportive enough? Was there still a note of his egocentric needs ringing through? Or maybe he wasn't clear enough that, no matter what, they'd stay friends even if Choutarou leaving means losing his regular's spot and having to quit playing doubles. Because doubles without Choutarou is impossible. Tennis, at some point, attached itself to Choutarou, the whole fierce and savage joy of gaining a point now seamlessly merged with the sharing of that small victory. Of sharing it with him.

But Choutarou was nowhere to be found.

His last hope is practice.

If Choutarou isn't late again.

By the time he's changed and stepping onto the courts, his partner isn't there yet. Shishido tries to ignore the curl of panic and begins his stretches.

" _Shishido_ -"

He looks up, startled by the absolute ferocity in Saito's voice. He might sound like a grunting bull most of the time, but now he froths and rages like a whole herd of bovine itching to spear Shishido through the chest with their horns.

A paper is thrown into his face with an incensed snarl, spittle chasing in its wake, and Shishido accidentally crumples it as he snatches at it.

"What the hell does this mean?" Saito roars, standing at perfect spraying height to deliver Shishido a face-full of saliva.

It's a resignation form. Shishido looks at it, his stomach squeezing. "I. I-I'm being kicked off-"

"NO you idiot!" Saito seethes, tearing it hatefully out of his hand to jab a finger at the name on the bottom of the page. "THIS? Why the hell did I just lose one half of my Doubles 1 pair?"

"What?" Shishido chokes out. "What?"

Choutarou's name, simple and clear, is signed under the last paragraph. Cold sweat dribbles down the side of Shishido's face. It might be the captain's spit, but he suddenly lacks the ability to care.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Saito wants to know. "Why bother to absolutely crush the former Doubles 1 pair, only to resign after? Are you two _trying_ to tear the whole team apart? HUH? ARE YOU?"

For Shishido, everything has just crumbled around him. There's the paper, with Choutarou's name on it. And there's nothing. The captain shouts at him, over and over, demanding answers, frothing with rage, but Shishido doesn't even hear it.

He resigned.

Choutarou really resigned. Music over tennis.

Now that it's happened, it doesn't feel right. At all. It's tennis. Choutarou resigning… it just doesn't fit, doesn't compute, doesn't make sense.

"Listen," Saito is growling. "I need you two. Fix this. I don't care what you do to make this right, drug him, blackmail him, threaten him, _whatever_ , but you both had better be ready to play Yamabuki next week. I'm counting on you."

Shishido stares him in the eyes, remembering what he'd told Choutarou yesterday. "I told him-" he starts, anguished, but Saito barrels straight over it.

"I don't care," he snarls, yanking the paper out of Shishido's hands and ripping it demonstratively into two. "Fix it."

And with that he rounds on the rest of the team, who all stand gaping like a herd of sheep at the display. Saito howls, "50 laps. ALL OF YOU!" and all of them scramble to do so, fearing the number either increasing, or being spit up on, if they don't. Shishido still stands there, fingertips shaking and doesn't notice Saito pointedly letting a few of them escape the threat of laps - or saliva - to run up towards him.

"Ryou!" Jiroh rushes up to him, grabs the front of his shirt, and starts to shake him. "Your _feelings_!"

A few paces behind him are Oshitari, Atobe and Mukahi, all three of them wearing varying expressions of utter exasperation. Atobe's is clearly winning, because he combines it with a up-turn of the nose that clearly suggests Shishido's presence to be as offending as something gross and sticky wedged into the soles of his scrumptiously white trainers.

Jiroh is still rattling him with gusto. Damn those flexible wrists of him. Shishido's head lolls and he bites his tongue in the progress.

"Your feelings!" Jiroh yells with emphasis. "You talked about them. Oh, Ryou, _his_ feelings."

Shishido has to grab Jiroh's wrists to stop him.

"It's so simple," the blond goes on. "I thought you got it! You're so stupid!"

Gakuto pries him bodily off Shishido, muttering, "Apparently they were better off in his ass."

"You've doomed us all!" Jiroh moans as he stomps about in an angry circle, before giving Shishido one last accusing glare. Having had his moment, he proceeds to promptly keel over.

Atobe catches him, in a rather absent-minded sort of way. "He's right you know," he points out as he eases Jiroh towards the ground until he's slumped against his legs. Soft snores leave his mouth. "Have you any idea how this will affect the team? You two are a vital unit, the sure-fire win, unbeaten, feared by all other doubles pairs. And somehow you've managed to get Ohtori, of all people, to resign? Even I am appalled by your utter idiocy. The trees- did you still not see them?"

"Trees?" Shishido echoes weakly.

"Date," Oshitari points out.

"Books. With _tips_ ," Gakuto adds.

"Your feelings!" Jiroh adds, from where he's on the ground, having woken up briefly.

"Ro _man_ ce." Kabaji adds, materializing out of nowhere.

"Trees," Atobe says again, significantly.

And then Shishido gets it.

"Shit," he says.

***

The day after the fiasco finds him standing in a deserted hallway. The paper between his fingers is rumpled, the writing on it is awful.

_20:00_

_You know where._

No need to sign it. Shishido folds the paper, belatedly realizing it has notes from his English class on the back, and slides it through a slat of Choutarou's locker.

***

At eight in the evening it's not dark, but not light either. Overhead, blue is bleeding to purple and the clouds are hemmed in warm pinks. It's too warm to keep his jacket on, but when he strips it off and lets it fall to the ground, his skin breaks out in goose-bumps.

The promise of rain still hangs there, suspended. The haze has been there ever since Choutarou was late to practice two days past. Hopefully the tension will break soon, the buzz of cold and wet freed, the atmosphere loosening.

Shishido stands where Choutarou once stood, nearly two years ago.

Nobody knew he had a copy of the key to the courts and Shishido didn't see any reason to get rid of it. The courts for Hyotei's middle school tennis team seem much more familiar, more welcoming, more _right_ , than the high school ones.

He waits for Choutarou.

His heart won't calm down. It pounds painfully hard, hard enough that Shishido looks down and keeps expecting to see his shirt bouncing off his chest with each impact. He can control his breathing, but not his heart.

It's past eight; he knows without looking. Maybe Choutarou didn't know where. Maybe because Shishido broke their friendship he has ceased to understand this language of half-words and gestures they've always had.

Maybe he simply doesn't want to come.

In the end Shishido sits at the baseline, on the exact spot Choutarou always serves from, and rolls a tennis ball along the ground.

The sky is completely violet now and in the distance, jagged by Tokyo's skyline, the night is washing in. Stars wink into view. As the temperature drops, the wind picks up, chasing a flurry of sakura petals along the ground. It becomes colder. Shishido's heart goes numb from slamming against his ribs so hard, and his butt goes numb from sitting on the chill clay courts.

He's not going to come.

Why should he?

Rage bubbles up, acid and stinging after the abuse his heart rate wrought, and it's directed like a lance inward at himself. With an angry snarl that's not a sob (it's not – it won't be) he leans back and throws the tennis ball away, all the violent helplessness packed behind it.

It disappears somewhere, the thick shadows swallowing it, and Shishido starts to gather his legs under him. They're stiff and unwilling after sitting down for so long.

_Twock!_

Sharp and hard.

His hand comes up before his mind processes the image of a yellow blur hurtling at him. It slams into his palm, the impact so hard it deadens all sensation out of the rest of his arm, all the way up to his elbow.

Choutarou walks out from the shadows, racket in his hand.

"You came," Shishido manages stupidly.

"Your racket," Choutarou says, abrupt, voice flat. "You can't play without it."

The words resound over the court, eerily familiar. The skin on the back of his neck crawls.

"Or didn't you want to play?"

It seems right, somehow. Shishido nods, "Yes. I do."

So he gets his racket, grateful that he always feels naked standing on a court without it, which is why he brought it along in the first place. Tennis seems like a more reasonable medium, especially as coherency and clarity have deserted Shishido for quite some time.

Besides, he's never seen Choutarou like this. Angry, yes, but never at him. It is, unreal though it sounds, a good look for Choutarou. Eyes dark, intense, brows slanted into a frown. They burn at him from underneath the scattered fringe of his hair. His mouth is a slice, lips pressed together. Shoulders are squared, back straight, feet planted. It's not unlike the way he sometimes looks when he bites his way through a torrid of musical notes, wilder.

It's hot as hell.

 _Not now,_ Shishido inwardly screams at his body.

The tape creaks under his fingers as he grips it harder and arrives at the net.

Choutarou sticks his hand over the net at him.

 _First serve?_ Shishido wonders, and concedes it is only fair. He hands over a ball from his pocket.

"Not that," Choutarou tells him. "Your hand. Give me your hand."

Shishido, involuntarily, takes a step back. The hair on the back of his neck is damp with sweat, sticky and warm. On his forehead it feels like sheet of ice.

"Let's shake," Choutarou says.

"Why?"

"Shishido."

Quickly Shishido clasps his hand, pumps it up and down and starts to pull away again, but Choutarou keeps holding it, longer than necessary. He keeps pulling and Choutarou keeps holding, until suddenly he releases him. Shishido stumbles back.

"Your serve," Choutarou says, low and rough and walks away.

His hand burns, buzzes, tingles and Shishido rubs it along his shorts to replace the sensation with something less dizzying.

Serves were always Choutarou's forte, not his. They are mediocre at best. This one is no exception.

Choutarou slams it back.

It's not a game. Before long Shishido is playing with his teeth bared and muscles straining, hair plastered along his forehead with sweat. He returns one of Choutarou's lobs with a slice, sharp and angled. They wrangle with a furious rally, the ball flying impossibly fast back and forth over the net, Shishido growling with frustration, Choutarou grunting through his more violent follow-throughs.

It's not about winning and not about dominating, but Shishido doesn't want to give an inch either way.

They play, so fast the ball whistles through the air, and Shishido marvels that he always seems to arrive just in time to return it. Somewhere in his third year Choutarou's regular shots became absurdly fast, too, but Shishido flows up to them, like gravity, and then realizes he's split-stepping. Naturally. He laughs, triumphant and sharp, the noise a bridge that suddenly connects the two of them.

He gets the ball past Choutarou, sharp and viciously past his guard, a shot that zooms low over the ground.

The score never mattered, but Shishido knows he's just taken a game.

Choutarou's serve.

All the nerves in Shishido's body start to hum.

For a long, crackling moment, he bounces the ball at the baseline. Choutarou throws the ball up, knees arched, one arm reaching for the sky. There's no Ik-kyu-nyu-kon. Instead when his whole body snaps forward, the face of his racket crashing into the ball, he lets out a low, rough yell.

Shishido feels it scream by, planting itself neatly into the left corner of his court as though it was there the whole time. There was nothing he could do. Instead he stands there, mouth open as he gapes gracelessly.

The knowledge that he's just witnessed Choutarou's fastest, most perfect serve ever, is enough for him to blurt: "Nice serve."

Choutarou blinks and his face comes out of the angry contortion it has been in all evening. Fingers go up to comb his hair back as he stares at the dark mark his ball left on Shishido's court. "Thanks. How fast do you think that was?"

Shishido has to laugh. "Really fucking fast. Man, that was incredible. I should piss you off more, ne?"

"Shishido-san," Choutarou says, a little hurt.

"Sorry," Shishido counters, his throat tightening. He comes up to the net. "Why did you quit the team?"

A little noise bubbles up at the back of Choutarou's throat. "You said-"

"I know. What I said-"

"You said it was all right, but it wasn't!" Choutarou goes on, the words streaming from him like a dam bursting. "It wasn't, not at all, and then you said it was okay to quit tennis."

"I-" Shishido looks at him, perplexed. "No, I didn't."

Choutarou is at the net now, too. His racket lies, forgotten, where he had stood to serve. His lips are white with tension, the ligaments in his forearms corded. His eyes are wide and wet.

"No," Shishido repeats and starts to shake his head. "I said it was okay for you to chose music."

A line appears between Choutarou's brows.

"It's not the same thing," Shishido insists. "It's not."

"How-" he lets out a little sigh of chagrin. "How is that not to same?"

"I don't want you to quit tennis!" Shishido bursts out. "God. Fuck. How can you think that? Idiot. I wanted to tell you that we'd still be friends, you know, if you preferred music. That I was on your side."

"You-"

"I wanted to be supportive," Shishido tries to explain. "That what you want matters, too. That I'm not selfish."

"Shishido-san…" Choutarou hands come up to tangle in his hair, but he lets out a jagged sort of laugh, one filled with relief and fright. "You should stick to being selfish."

"Yeah, no kidding," Shishido snorts, letting out a deep breath. "You're gonna… come back, then?"

Choutarou looks drained, defeated. "I- I handed in my resignation form-"

"Buchou tore it up."

"He- what?" Choutarou's voice goes high. "But he said he'd kick me off the team if I was _late_. And then he-"

"Yeah, well, he's full of shit. Or spit." Shishido chuckles and winks. "He quite literally said he needed us to play."

And with that, the tension breaks. It starts to rain. Choutarou is laughing, great gasping sobs of relief. "I can't believe this," he breathes and looks up at Shishido through his hair, to slant a little hesitant smile at him.

"Yeah," Shishido returns, and the ache in his body returns, too. No matter that Choutarou looked good enough to eat when angry, he still looks fucking amazing when he smiles, too. God, too damned gorgeous.

Taking a step closer, the net sticking wet on wet fabric against his clothes, Choutarou's smile fades, but the intensity in his eyes swells. "Hiyoshi told you, then?" he asks, voice a shaking whisper. "And… and you're alright with that?"

Shishido shrugs. Didn't he already say so? Wasn't that what they just sorted out?

"Yeah, of course I am," he emphasizes, beyond glad that they've managed to overcome this hurdle.

The net creaks, ropes straining as Choutarou leans bodily into it, as close to Shishido as he can. Shishido feels confusion crawl like an army of ants over the back of spine, dig into his skin. "Choutarou?" His voice breaks and then his heart slams in staccato warning against the roof of his mouth, because Choutarou reaches for his hand again. Fingers tickle the back of his hand, and it feels as though they're right between his legs, hot and intimate.

Shishido snatches his hand away as though it just caught fire.

Eyes narrow. The tension snaps back up taut between them, a barrier Shishido can feel pressing up between, separating them. Wrong move. Again. Fix and break.

"Then," Choutarou says strangled and furious and helpless. "Then why won't you let me touch you?"

_See the trees. Your feelings, talk about them. Ro-MAN-ce. Oh, Goddammit, shut up!_

"You said we were okay," Choutarou goes on. "I don't unders-" he chokes on his words, in shock.

Shishido thinks he finally sees the trees.

Leaning half-over the net to do so, Shishido grabs Choutarou's hand, ending it from where it had all started. He cradles it between his own, mouth trembling as he bends his head over it it. The knuckles form a valley, cupping Shishido's lips between the ring and index finger. Tennis and rain have made the skin damp and a bit salty. It smells like sweat, too, musky and earthy, but also rubbery from the grip-tape and the ball. He keeps his mouth there, awkward, unsure of what to do. Eventually he has to draw back.

He lets the hand go.

It falls limply to Choutarou's side, who stands there with huge, opaque eyes. Completely bewildered. 

Shame washes through him, knowing that he's got it wrong again, that Atobe and Jiroh and everybody else has got it _wrong_ also. There are no feelings but his and _his_ alone.

Shishido bolts.

And leaves everything behind.

Everything.

***

In the middle of the night, Shishido stumbles through the door.

The light is on in the hallway, but the rest of the house is shrouded in darkness. Shishido kicks his trainers off, feels blisters covering his feet. After tucking tail and running like a coward, he walked. He can't remember where, or how far, or how long. Only that he walked and walked and walked until it got so dark his eyes started to ache with the strain of trying to see in the night.

His parents are still awake. They're furious. Where's his phone? What does he mean, he's lost it? Doesn't he realize how much those things cost? Does he realize that they were worried sick about him? Did he know that they called the police?

His father contacts the police again, apologizing for the trouble, assuring them that their son is home and in one piece. Sosuke is standing frozen in the doorway, pyjama clad, holding a glass of water to his lips.

Shishido doesn't feel whole or in one piece.

"Ryou!" His mother is looking at him, her eyes wide and swimming, scared of this new person standing there, who is her son and yet has ceased to be hers.

"I'm sorry," Shishido says, flat and polite. "Please excuse me."

And with that he trudges up the stairs.

Though he feels gross, sweaty and sticky and wet all the way through to his boxers from wandering the streets in the rain, Shishido strips all his clothes off, changes into his pyjamas. Under the sheets, he wraps his blankets tightly over him, curling around the gaping nothing in the centre of his body. Part of him wishes for tears, for an outlet, but there's nothing. Just nothing.

Awake and utterly exhausted, Shishido hangs between the two, staring into nothing.

"Ryou?"

His mother comes in with familiar soft-footed, light steps and sits on the edge of his bed, making barely an indent. There's nothing to say. Shishido looks at her and she looks back. Her eyes are brown, like his, only they are open, showing the affection and worry. Her hand drifts to his hair and she runs her fingers through it soothingly, just as she did when it was still long. But it is short and spiky, as it has been for two years, because Choutarou once made an off-hand remark about now it looked good short. For some reason he was never able to figure out why that one remark made him keep it trimmed, it hadn't made any sense at the time for he had _liked_ it long. It makes sense now.

"Ryou?"

"I'm alright," he says. "Just tired."

"Hmmm," she hums. "I know it feels bad now, but it will get better soon."

Shishido wonders how this can get better, ever.

"It will," she continues. "Tomorrow even. You'll see."

"Sure," he says, wanting to be left alone.

She stands up, leaving his scalp tingling, and pulls open the door. "Goodnight."

"'Night."

The door closes, leaving nothing. Only the darkness and shadows. Shishido tosses and turns, closes his eyes and doesn't sleep.

***

Next day he skips school.

He's not physically ill but heartsick.

But not sleeping has left him looking wan and pale, skin shallow. His father frowns, points out his lack of fever. His mother ignores it all and keeps him home.

"Try to get some sleep," she orders him, after tucking him in like a five-year old.

Shishido lies in bed, empty and void of anything meaningful. There's the look on Choutarou's face, looming against the back of his eyelids, and sleep slips through his fingers as those eyes turn accusing in his mind. Somewhere he realizes that when he fled the court, he had also left his racket, his cell phone, and wallet behind as well as his heart. Although he's uncertain where their friendship lies, he knows that Choutarou will have kept them safe. His heart is breaking in a million pieces but he can feel comfort that he knows his friend well. That thought only lasts a moment and the warmth quickly fades away.

Outside it rains. It's been raining ever since the skies burst, yesterday evening. It pours, actually, a steady cadence against his window pane. The rain trickles down the glazed surface like slow tears. The whole city drips and cries, water steams everywhere to gather into puddles, that swell and swell, reaching, until they can connect, until everything is set blank.

Shishido lies on his back, as empty as the world outside.

He thinks about the things that are gone now, the things that will never return. The camaraderie between him and Choutarou, his best friend, and his closest. Ever since Gakuto's focus became Oshitari and Jiroh only tends to wake up when Atobe is around, Choutarou was the one he spend his free hours with, with whom he shared news and silences. Gone are the private smiles between them, the inside jokes nobody would ever get, too obscure for anyone but them. Gone are the sleepovers, the evenings spend at an arcade, or some nameless noodle shack. Gone is the physical closeness, the fist-bumps, or the arms around shoulders.

Gone.

Everything.

Shishido lies in bed and feels sorry for himself for approximately twenty-one hours.

The ache starts after that.

Suddenly the whole room stops being safe and comfortable and becomes cramped, restricting. The noise, _that_ noise, starts to well between his ears again, loud and sloshing, thumping, ever insistent.

It's entirely familiar, if not more powerful than last time.

Being defeated by Tachibana struck him down and _kept_ him down for less than a day. He's bad at defeat. Before the first twenty-fours hours went by he was back on the courts again, feet braced, teeth bared.

Shishido starts to frown.

What _is_ he doing?

Abso-fucking-lutely-nothing, that's what.

Does that mean he's ready to let Choutarou go? Just like that? No explanations, no apologies, no nothing?

He's not.

It's _Choutarou_.

Yeah, okay, no way he's staying down.

Shishido sits up, sudden enough to make his head spin. The clock reads six. School's been out for a while.

Choutarou didn't outright punch him, did he? With the power he packs, Shishido is sure he'd have felt _that_ , at least. Okay, so there was the 'what-the-hell-Shishido-san' look on his face, but he can work with that, he thinks.

Within twenty minutes Shishido manages to shower, eat, brush his teeth, and is ready to go. As he's struggling with his shoes, there's a voice behind him, "And where do you think you are going?"

"Uh," Shishido says none too intelligently.

His mother arches a very much _not_ impressed brow. "Weren't you sick?"

"Er."

They look at each other.

"Here's change for the bus," she says and walks off, humming a theme song from a drama series under her breath.

"I," Shishido looks at the coins in his palm, opens his mouth. Shuts it.

No time to question this.

Instead he springs up and slips through the door. By the time he rounds the corner of the street, he's soaked through yet again having forgotten to put on a jacket, or even to grab an umbrella. Puddles splash apart as he runs through them, until water plasters his clothes to him, flatten his hair. The people under the bus awning are packed tightly and all of them give him abashed looks as he rudely pushes his way through to check the roster, a drenched teenager with a scowl on his face.

The next one isn't in for another half an hour.

Yeah, fuck that.

Shishido darts back out into the rain and starts running for real.

It feels good, liberating, after being cooped up inside with his feelings all day. He's never been for an passive approach. Streets get wider, houses statelier. The night is clear, the moon almost full and abnormally yellow-bright. There's not a cloud in sight and yet the rain keeps coming.

Finally he stops, slipping in the rain a bit, and leans down on his knees to catch his breath. Choutarou's house seems huge, beautiful and expensive and so unlike Shishido himself, who stands there like a drowned rat, the legs of his pants splattered with mud. Shishido takes a moment to push away the more sensible urge to turn back, to avoid what is going to be the most defining confrontation in their friendship.

There's nothing that can make him back down now that he's mind fixed on his purpose, so he walks up to the door and knows that he'll get on his knees and beg Choutarou to forgive him, if need be. The bell doesn't make a buzzing noise when he presses it, but an elegant chime he can hear echoing in the hallway beyond. Belatedly he wonders what he'll say if Choutarou's mother opens up or, God help him, his father.

The door swings wide.

The tall silhouette backlit by the lamp in the hallway can only be one person. They look at each other, both surprised. Choutarou's mouth falls open. "Shishi-"

"I'm sorry!" Shishido bursts out, the raw hoarseness in his voice foreign even to him. "I should never have- I didn't know what I was, was… can we still be friends? I know it's wro-"

And that's when Choutarou kisses him.

Hands cradle his face, thumbs aligning with his jawline to tip his head up, soft and gentle one moment and the next not. It's more of an oh-ouch-that-kinda-hurts, because Choutarou all but crushes their mouths together, hot and hard. And awkward. The circuits in Shishido's brain have not so conveniently fried themselves and he just stands there, hands curling helplessly and wondering what to do. Choutarou seems to get on quite fine without Shishido's input, though, lips warm and fierce, sliding them over his mouth again and again.

It's only when he pulls back long enough to murmur, "Why did you run away? I thought you'd changed your mind." That Shishido's brain catches up with the situation.

The situation being that 1) Choutarou is, _holy fucking hell hallelujah_ , kissing him and 2) he's doing it smack dab in the doorway, where everybody driving by can see it and everybody who passes through the hallway can see it.

"Your parents!" Shishido squeaks.

"Nobody's home," Choutarou murmurs. "I'm alone."

All rational thought packs its bags and leaves.

The hands on his face drop to his shoulders, then glide down his arms, until they can twine their fingers. Choutarou pulls him inside, closes the door.

His mouth feels like a bee-sting, swollen and foreign, throbbing. All capacity of forming words, of talking, has left him. It's the most frightening thing that has ever happened to him and he doesn't know what to do, has never been kissed like this, the way Choutarou does now, touching his chin to make his intentions clear before leaning in again.

More slowly this time, he kisses him, slow and light, mere pecks of kisses, until Shishido finally tries to kiss back. It draws a little sigh out of Choutarou, so he does it again, a little surer, a bit more bolder. Choutarou is unbelievably warm against his front, and the way his hands feel as they push him up against the wall is mind-blowing. The first time he feels something moist and unbelievably hot along the crevice of his mouth, Shishido doesn't get it. Only when the kiss becomes wetter, lips softer and parted, teasing and oh so damn _good_ , which Shishido tries to mimic by opening his lips a bit. He doesn't expect to feel something warm and slick curling into his mouth, which is weird and strange and makes his nerves sing out, sending delicious shivers down his spine. His knees go weak and he starts to slide down the wall, and Choutarou goes down with him to straddle his thighs when Shishido's behind thumps to the cold wooden panelling of the genkan.

Choutarou all but crawls into his lap, still kissing him and it finally dawns completely on Shishido that _he wants this too_. Especially since he must be able to feel how hard Shishido is, he's sitting right on his erection for crying out loud, but he doesn't seem to mind at all. His hands, seemingly at a loss, clutch at Choutarou's back. The muscles contract and expand there, firm and shifting under his grip, ever-moving as Choutarou moves, touching Shishido everywhere he can. His face, his neck, his shoulders, his collarbone, his arms, chest, ribs, hips, … until Shishido's head feels light and dizzy and so, so right.

Eventually Choutarou pulls away, their mouths separating with a soft, wet noise, to kiss his neck and temple, his cheek.

Shishido sits there, caught between the cold chafing of his wet clothes and Choutarou's body heat, hands fisted in the fabric of the t-shirt. His pulse is hammering away, hard enough that Choutarou must be able to feel it.

"I can't believe that this is finally happening-" Choutarou murmurs into his hair, breath coming in hot gusts.

Shishido nods, not knowing what to think of this, and says out loud, "I'm confused."

"Me too," Choutarou says, pulling away and straightening his back. "Why did you run off?"

"I- look, let me up first. I'm cold," he grumbles.

Choutarou nods, stands up and holds out a hand for Shishido to take. "You're soaked."

"It's raining," Shishido points out inanely and lets himself be hauled to his feet.

They go to Choutarou's room. There Shishido perches on the edge of his bed, which suddenly has ceased being a place to sleep and has become something new and exiting and vaguely frightening. Shishido squirms, tries not to think about it, and shivers. From the lack of sleep and stress, from sheer arousal, from his wet clothes, he doesn't know, but it goes bone deep, racking his body. Choutarou returns with a towel, but doesn't let Shishido have it, even when he gestures for it. Instead he wraps it around Shishido himself, the texture soft and luxurious, and starts to ruffle carefully over his hair, hands moving the fabric back and forth.

This is new and unfamiliar, but nice. Choutarou's arms on either side of him, the vulnerability of allowing someone to take care of him like that. Shishido's face is on fire. Choutarou sees this, smiles, and pauses mid-ruffle to lean into the hood the towel forms around Shishido to kiss him again. "You should probably take off your shirt," he points out quietly as he draws away.

Shishido feels more like himself when he manages to arch an eyebrow at this. Pointedly.

It's even more gratifying to finally see Choutarou flush as red as him, too. "I-" he splutters, "You're going to catch a cold if you-"

"Uh-huh," Shishido says, sarcasm dripping from his tone as he peels the wet fabric with difficulty over his head. "Sure."

Choutarou throws a dry shirt at him, hitting him in the face.

He feels like child, wearing something that's so large, sleeves hanging past his fingers and the hem reaching mid-thigh. But the warm, dry fabric more than enough makes up for it. Huddling, Shishido draws his legs up, folds them underneath him. His pants wring uncomfortably. They're still wet, but he doesn't dare ask for dry ones, worried that it might look like an excuse to take them off.

"I guess we should talk," Shishido mutters, feeling as though he's floating through space, a little like the moon soaring up there with the stars.

Choutarou makes a wry face. "That didn't work out so well last time," he points out, then corrects, "times. Actually. We always-"

"That's my fault," Shishido grumbles. "This whole… whole _thing_ makes me stupid. I can't get anything right."

"You made me feel like an idiot," Choutarou tells him, the hurt creeping back into his voice, like ink splattering into water. "You said that Hiyoshi told you and that you're all right with it, but then I wanted to touch you and you pulled away. You _always_ pulled away. I didn't know what to think. You said that you didn't want me to quit tennis, but the way told me it was better for me to chose music… So I quit and I never _ever_ wanted to quit tennis. But you said-"

"Whoa-" Shishido pinches the bridge of his nose. "Less of the things I said, you're losing me. First: I didn't want you to touch me because… _because_. You _know_ why."

Choutarou shakes his head a little, frowning as their explanations fly straight past one other and don't connect the way they should, to form one coherent story as they meet in the middle.

Cheeks alight, Shishido looks down and plucks at the bedspread, embarrassed. "Because I like it," he admits hoarsely. "I like it too much. I didn't want you to notice."

"I- _huh_." Choutarou shakes his head, "Wait. Why didn't you want me to know if Hiyoshi already told you I liked you?"

There's a pause.

"Hiyoshi never said that," Shishido says, thinking _ah-hah_ and feeling more stupid than ever.

"What?"

"He told me your practices overlapped," Shishido goes on.

They stare at each other.

" _Shishido-san,_ " Choutarou groans, hands in his hair.

"It's not my fault you think Hiyoshi blabbed on you!" Shishido exclaims, but there's a note of laughter in his voice. " _Hiyoshi_ , really? I mean, c'mon, he's more uptight than Atobe's ass, how can you ever-"

"Shishido-san!"

"It's true!"

"Don't laugh- I can't believe we… stop laughing!" Choutarou tries to shove him, but Shishido evades, laughing harder and harder, the balance restored between them. "You're awful," Choutarou accuses. "I can't believe you think it's funny. I thought you _hated_ me. You told me to quit, and you pulled away and-"

"Shh," Shishido says, the one to reach out this time, taking Choutarou's hand and pulling it towards him. "And I never said-"

"It sounded like that, all right? I really thought Hiyoshi told you I was… that I _liked_ you and then you tell me _that_ and say you're going to play singles and- and- _ah_ ," air whooshes out of his lungs, and his eyelashes flutter, all words drying up.

Shishido smiles as he kisses the back of Choutarou's hand, finishing what he started yesterday night. Each knuckle and then down each finger, to end at the tips. His fingers are so long, so beautiful and so unlike his. Then he turns the hand over, starts at the tips and along the inside of his fingers, lingers at his palm last, before finally just tipping his head into it. There, at least, it is rough in the same places his own hand is. It tastes a little sweaty, like his own, when he touches the tip of his tongue there. Choutarou lets out a little noise that almost turns into a moan and his free-hand slips into Shishido's hair, clutching for a moment, before finger combing it, slow and lingering.

"I've wanted this since second year," Choutarou admits softly, still trailing his fingers through his hair.

Opening his eyes, Shishido looks up at him, throat constricting.

"Remember when we were watching the Nationals with Seigaku? You said that one day it would be us standing there, winning. I knew then," the smile is fleeting and shy, but true.

"I figured it out a week or so ago," Shishido concedes lamely. "When we were at your place and you were playing the piano."

"The piano?" Choutarou says, laughing a bit. "Why the piano?"

Shishido scowls, hides his blush by pressing face-forward into Choutarou's hand. "I _like_ the piano," he grumbles. " _A lot_."

This time it's Choutarou who bursts out in surprised, but also delighted laughter, and it's Shishido who tries to shove him, but arms catch him and pull him down to tumble over the bed. Shishido wriggles and curses, fighting to gain the upper hand, but not minding it at all when Choutarou manages to pin him down in the end, caging him with his body, to kiss him. This time they meet surer, lips softer and slacker, brushing along one other, moist and warm. They pull together tighter, mouths parting to allow their tongues to touch and taste, slanting deep and then drawing back to breathe each other's air for a moment before sliding in again. Choutarou's hands come up to cup his face between them, palms on Shishido's cheeks, his long fingers curling into his hair. For a moment they look at each other, Choutarou smiling, as he touches their noses together. And still smiling as he brushes the pad of his right thumb along Shishido's mouth and _still_ smiling into the kiss that inevitably follows.

The roaring noise in Shishido's head starts to sound like the sweet, wild music.

Piano music.

 

_Omake_

It is clear that Usami-sensei does not care one bit for Shishido. The way he tips his elegant, small glasses down his nose, peers over them and curls his lip tells Shishido enough.

Choutarou notices it, too. "Shishido-senpai is here to help me carry my books and belongings, sensei," he explains, smiling politely.

A little sniff. A pointed look, as though Shishido is a grubby dog about be unleashed on a clean basket of laundry. Or something potentially too dull-witted to be allowed into the hallowed grounds that is the music room.

"I suppose that is wise…" Usami concedes, voice nasally posh. "Refrain from touching anything," he adds frostily to Shishido, eyes flinty behind his glasses.

Shishido stares back at him, even colder, until Usami is the first to look away.

Again that little sniff. "Please do not lose the key, Ohtori-kun."

Producing it from a pocket in his designer suit, he holds it high up over Shishido's head, limp-wristed, as though he thinks him capable him from grabbing it and whisking it off to God knows where. Choutarou accepts it, still smiling serenely, and respectfully bows before leaving the room.

"What a creep," Shishido says as soon as he thinks they're as good as out of earshot.

"Shishido-san," Choutarou scolds and nudges him. "Usami-sensei is a very talented man. He's just a little… peculiar."

"Refrain from touching anything," Shishido mimics and then scoffs. "Peculiar my ass, he's a _creep_."

Choutarou shakes his head, but can't keep the smile completely off his face.

The music room is a formidable place. The ceiling is high, for better acoustics Shishido supposes, and the windows are huge, admitting bright swathes of afternoon light. There's instruments _everywhere_. Shishido almost does knock over a harp, but manages to catch it before it crashes into a row of… cellos? He has no idea. The desks are made of dark, polished wood. No scribbles or gauges in the desktops there, no declarations of love or other nonsense written on it.

Choutarou navigates between the rows of instruments, slides open a cabinet and starts to pulls stacks of papers out of it, leaving Shishido to explore.

It's all shine and polish, with winks of gold trimmings and silver strings. There's not a speck of dust to be found.

Hyotei's high school music division produces the best musicians in Tokyo, after all. The music room seems to reflect all the grandeur and splendour that awaits those who graduate from this division.

By the window, bathed in soft sunset-hues, stands a black, sleek piano.

It's like magnet.

He knows he's not supposed to be touching anything, Usami clearly saw the touch of destruction stamped on him, but the piano stands there, gleaming and huge. Even he can't break that.

At least, not without some help of, let's say, a sledgehammer or crowbar.

Not that he wants to, or anything.

Light trails along the surface, buffed clean enough Shishido can see himself reflected in it. The bench is padded with a rich, red fabric, comfortable when he sits on it. The keys are white, black, white, black, and one of the whites makes a high, clear and thrilling 'plink' when he presses his index finger to it.

"I though you weren't supposed to touch anything," someone whispers hotly into his ear.

The keys thunder in discord when Shishido accidentally slams both hands down. " _Holy_ \- dammit, don't startle me like that," he grounds out.

"Hm," Choutarou says, settling down behind him. It forces Shishido to scoot to the very edge of the bench, to allow enough room for them both. Arms slip around him and stop to hover right above the keys. "Requests?"

"Uhm," Shishido manages, wondering if anybody else has ever got an instant hard-on from watching someone play the piano before. Though, technically, Choutarou isn't even playing yet. It's gotta be a record, or something. He shifts, feels his color rise.

"Nothing? Okay," Choutarou says cheerfully and starts to play.

It's not the full out merging with the piano, because Shishido is rather bodily preventing that, but it is strange and wonderful to feel how Choutarou's heart starts to race where his chest presses against his back, how he starts to tremble, ever so slightly. He's resting his chin on Shishido's shoulder to see what he's doing, his cheek warm against his. Right under his nose, Choutarou's fingers seem to fly, impossibly fast, dancing over the keys as he coaxes a wild and warm melody from the ivories, which seems to stream right past Shishido, filling him up with a waterfall of music. Choutarou really is too good at this, talented in a way Shishido can't even begin to understand.

His eyes go dry and strain as he tries to keep track of them, but it is simply impossible. So he stares, caught glowing in what's happening, unwilling to move. Unable to, also, right up until Choutarou tilts his head a bit, kisses the side of his throat. His fingers go on without faltering. Shishido gasps, too surprised and aroused to help himself.

Lips kiss up from his neck, linger on his jawline, and then find his mouth. The music stops, abrupt, because he's winding arms around Shishido's body, embracing him from behind. Shishido finds his eyes drifting closed as Choutarou comes back for another kiss.

"A-are you sure about this?" he asks, voice rough and stuttering as Choutarou skims the tip of his tongue along Shishido's bottom lip.

"I locked the door," Choutarou says genially into the kiss.

_Holy fuck._

"Yeah, uh," Shishido says, laughing a little, "that wasn't what I meant."

"Oh," Choutarou goes, disappointment edging the sound clearly.

Shishido snickers.

"Then what-"

"Yeah," Shishido pulls away, stands up. If he lets Choutarou kiss and nibble on him like that, there's not a sensible word going to make it out of his mouth.

The piano thrums moodily when he leans against it, but from this angle he can at least look his partner in the face. "I was talking about your quitting… _this_ ," he explains, caressing a hand down the shining surface of the instrument. "It's music. You're good at it."

Choutarou leans back, eyes intense and dark. "Hyotei is not the only place where I can play music; it does not end in school. Tennis, this team, is _now_. And I really want to make it to the Nationals. With you, Shishido-san."

Shishido closes his eyes.

"I'm sure," Choutarou repeats and rises from the bench.

This time, before Choutarou can pin him, Shishido winds his tie around his fist, uses it to reel him in. There's laughter glittering in Choutarou's eyes, but his lips are parted in anticipation. Hands frame Shishido's hips, fingers digging in nice and hard when their lips brush, cling and then settle deep. After some practice, they got to be good at this kissing thing, real fast. Both of them learn to yield, lips falling open, allowing the other to taste, before coming back to give just as good as they got, only to go soft and pliable again.

It's better than any sort of music could ever be.

  


Ever.

_-fin-_


End file.
